The voices in my head don't think they're imaginary - STOP DRIVING ME CRAZY!

Unless it's that Cottonelle puppy that appears to be emerging from someone's butt in some of the ads.

flushing the poisons from your body..

but then for some writers, they do need to flush out their stories, not flesh them out. (but not you!)

If the story comes to you as a bare-bones outline, then you have to flesh it out.

If the story comes to you as a jumble of potential plot points, scenes, characters, and settings, some of which will be in the final story, but many of which will not, then you have to flush it out.

Flushing out is a perfectly appropriate behavior... for hunting dogs.

I like the sound of "flushing it out". It is like it is a toxin in your body and you have to get diarrhea to have it pour out of you.

Actually, now that I think about it...I'm not sure how to use "flesh" as a verb.

"I totally fleshed this bag of cheetos the other day and then I fleshed all over the carpet."

OK, OK, why am I spending so much time on this....anyway. From Dictionary.com:

–verb (used with object)
13. to plunge (a weapon) into the flesh.
14. Hunting. to feed (a hound or hawk) with flesh in order to make it more eager for the chase. Compare blood (def. 16).
15. to incite and accustom (persons) to bloodshed or battle by an initial experience.
16. to inflame the ardor or passions of by a foretaste.
17. to overlay or cover (a skeleton or skeletal frame) with flesh or with a fleshlike substance.

18. to give dimension, substance, or reality to (often fol. by out): The playwright fleshed out the characters.

19. to remove adhering flesh from (hides), in leather manufacture.
20. Archaic. to satiate with flesh or fleshly enjoyments; surfeit; glut.

I've never heard that one being used, but yes, it is annoying.

My pet peeve is people using "jury rigged" for something cobbled together on the fly. Sorry, folks, it's "jerry rigged." "Jury rigged" is something you see in bad courtroom movies.

Jeff P.

Not to be difficult, ahem, but...those are two different turns of phrases all together. I didn't read the comments other people left, and again, ahem, who am I judge (read: I TOTALLY judge) but I suspect someone very, very stupid is annoying you by using that phrase in a way that makes your pretty little Adam Ant head spin like an extra in The Exorcist. But you can, actually, flush something out, as in, if you're trying to kill Bambi, you can flush them out of the nifty little hiding spot that that dense Thumper said was "hunter-proof." Now if you had said, "irregardless" isn't a word, I'm totally on-board. Hand me my pitchfork and my torch, and I'm storming the castle with ya. Damn the stupid people, why not just tax them??