Phrase Origins:
Back in medieval times, huntsmen would hire younger adult men for a rather bizarre purpose: to make a whole bunch of noise near some bushes. Why would they need these men to beat up some defenseless plants? Well, so this common idiom might come into fruition! Actually, it was to scare the animals hidden inside to come out.
Usually, the hunter would be responsible for the scaring, but in a lot of cases when the animal would run out, lining up an accurate shot before they escaped was much too hard. So instead, the clever hunters figured out a way to make this easier: get someone else to do it for you.
Now, it wasn't merely cute rabbits and squirrels leaping out from the shadows of the brush, sometimes there would be big, wild boars with sharp tusks lurking inside!
Those tusks were sharp and dangerous, so to avoid getting their legs sliced to pieces, the safer method would be to keep distance from the bush while still making noise. That way, if an angry boar did come charging out, there would be more time to react and dodge out of its wrathful path.
In effect, the hired men were doing precisely what the idiom Beating Around the Bush implies: they were keeping distance from their main target, the bush, instead of engaging it up close.
According to Idiomation, the phrase origins for Beating Around The Bush has them rooted somewhere in the16th century, where in a poem by George Gascoigne reads:
"He bet about the bushe, while others caught the birds. . ." This was in the year 1572.
"Ugh, will you stop beating around the bush and get to the point already!"
"Alex refused to tell me what really happened to those chocolate chip cookies that Monday morning, all he did was beat around the bush when I asked him directly."
"This is a waste of time, either quit beating around the bush and tell me what your complaint is, or get back to work! My time is precious, and we only just hired you a week ago."
Note: For most old phrases, sayings, and idioms, finding the exact person or date in which a phrase originated is impossible. What's provided is the earliest known date the phrase or saying was being used in.
Usually the phrase is a quote from an old newspaper, book, poem, play, etc. If it is already being used by a newspaper though, then the saying is commonly known among the people of that time. This means the origin of the saying is older.
There are some cases though where determining the origin from an exact person is possible, however these are not common.
- Most wild boars have the average weight of about 180 to 240 pounds. Combine that with their compact size and sharp tusks and you can picture the amount of damage they can inflict, especially if they have a chance to build a little momentum.
