Confessions of the Linguistic Spy

Photo credit: http://images.travelpod.com

Today I went to the gym only to find out that my favourite Body Balance class was cancelled and something called ‘Stretch and Relax’ was going to take place instead. A lady came up saying that she had done stretch and relax before and found it to have much more relaxing than stretching and said she would give it a miss.  I thought so too and headed for the treadmill thinking that I’ll write a post about this phrase.

The meaning of ‘give something a miss‘ is quite obvious – to decide not to do something that you would normally do.

Here are some examples of where you can use this expression:

– Give it a miss, splash out on something a bit better! (tripadvisor.co.uk)

– Great location but give it a miss if you want a quiet relaxing holiday (tripadvisor.co.uk)

– With the dates it’s going to have too much of an impact on my other competitions, so I think I’ll have to give it a miss next year (BBC)

– I’ll give the barbecue a miss. I’m on a diet (The Free Dictionary)