When I first came to Canada I recall being amazed when hearing someone refer with affection to their ant Ethel. How could an insect merit such devotion? It took me a while to figure out they meant aunt not ant.
In the over three years I lived in the US I adapted more, even saying zee rather than zed. Now I happily use store for shop, and truck for lorry, much to the chagrin of my UK relatives.
But there's one thing, as Churchill said "up with which I will not put."
Family historians speak of "putting flesh on the bones" of our genealogy to develop a picture of an ancestor as a person rather than a collection of statistics.
We put flesh on the bones by "fleshing it out."
We get rid of something by "flushing it out."
But how many times have I heard people say the one when they mean the other?
A Google search for < genealogy "flush it out" - flesh > yielded 1,910 results, whereas
A Google search will also find several posts by people just as aggravated by this misuse as I am.
You don't have to use either. There are plenty of other hackneyed, phrases such as "Paint a picture", "bring them to life", "breathe life into them", "make them come alive." Perhaps you could even be creative.
There does exist a legitimate use of "flush it out" NOT related to disposing of unwanted stuff. One can go through an extensive volume of material (e.g. a book, a database) to "flush out" all those last elusive details. This use, I believe, may come from the British "sport" of grouse shooting, where beaters are used to "flush" the birds out of the bushes. In general, however, your comments are right on.
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