To hate the phrase ' nip it in the bud?'

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I DETEST this phrase, especially the way it is often used on here. Another person doing something you don't like...' nip it in the bud'
It's so prissy and mealy mouthed and horrible

That's not how it's used though is it?

It's used to convince (or try to convince) someone to put a stop to inappropriate behaviour. Not just behaviour the other person doesn't like.

It’s just from gardening - snip it off so it doesn’t develop further.

So not merely something you don’t like, but a new behaviour you need to put a stop to before it becomes a habit

It's curt

I’m in my 40s and I’ve heard it all my life. No issue with it - it encapsulates the idea of dealing with a problem whilst it’s still small, before it’s more obvious or more difficult to deal with, very well. I guess we all have words or phrases that we irrationally dislike.

I can’t follow how the adjectives you’re using apply to the offending term.

Mealy-mouthed: afraid to speak frankly or straightforwardly
Prissy: fussily and excessively respectable
Horrible: causing or likely to cause horror; shocking

Yours might be the stupidest post I’ve ever read on Mumsnet. Congratulations.

It is a bog-standard phrase and quite a useful shorthand for 'you need to tackle this before it become a bigger issue'.

This. You're being unreasonable.

It's also pretty much impossible, you can't control another adult. Young adult DS is smoking/doing weed "nip it in the bud".

DH is liking other women's pictures/noticing other women "nip it in the bud"

Mil is being interfering.....

How exactly?

It's a fairly standard phrase tbh.

What I do think is absolutely daft is when an OP uncovers evidence of an affair or pre-affair and is told on Mumsnet to "nip it in the bud". Betrays such of understanding or empathy or how relationships work, along with a weird moral majority approach to marriages.

You don't get to "nip" other people's emotional lives in the bud. If your OH is having an affair or planning an affair you don't have any control over it. You can check his phone or insist he leave his job or whatever nuclear option you take but you can't brainwash him.

Your choice is to tolerate it or to leave (and the answer is always leave for me). But you don't get to police your OH's life just because you're married to him. No one has that much control.

Such a lack of understanding sorry

No offence taken here.

Working in the construction sector I'm far more likely to hear "fuck it off, mate." 🤣