Flesh out vs. Flush out
These two phrases, "flesh out" and "flush out", do not mean the same thing and are not interchangeable.
You flesh out a plan. Building the plan is akin to putting flesh on a skeletal frame. Fleshing out is building up not searching out.
Your hunting dog flushes out the pheasants from the tall grass so that you can get a good shot at them. You flush out things that are hidden.
You could flesh out a plan to flush out the pheasants.
(flayed skeleton from this anatomy chart)
tags: flush out, flesh out, vocabulary
6 comments:
Thanks for the elucidation... but does anyone ever actually confuse those two?
You can expect that an outburst like the post above, typically has a trigger. In this case multiple instances of the incorrect use of "flush out" for "flesh out".
I imagine the same thing caused the "a lot" is two words rant from Overcompensating that I referenced a while ago.
I randomly stumbled on this post when Googling the mystery of these phrases.. one of my lecturers often interchanges them though it's obvious he's meaning "flesh out." I had an "a-HA!!" moment when reading this, knowing that someone else gets a bit irked by this topic...
I hear this CONSTANTLY among my colleagues and can hardly sit still and not correct them. Flush, this flush that...they mean flesh!!!
These phrases are still very simliar in meaning to me because for example to put flesh a plan you need to flush out many of the unknown issues/tasks/details etc.
Am I wrong?
My last two bosses always talked of flushing out plans... I never took the opportunity to correct them (and neither did anyone else, apparently). It drives me nuts when people use phrases that they don't understand!
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