The Common Pheasant, the most important bird for many gamekeepers (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
What to many people is simply good manners is often interpreted by others as evasiveness. Beating about the bush was originally, in the 15th century, a way of finding game birds at night. Hunters or poachers would tap a stick on the ground or rustle the leaves with it to try and flush out game. This was just a preliminary to the actual capture or killing of the bird, and the phrase came into general use in the sense of a roundabout approach to an awkward problem as opposed to direct and forthright approach to the real business in hand.
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