Nelly Min

Reader's question: Should this complicity be proven Congress will have to bite the bullet and move toward impeachment. There is no halfway house.

Could you explain “to bite the bullet”?

My comments:

To bite the bullet is to endure a painful or otherwise unpleasant situation that is seen as unavoidable. It may be derived from the practice of having a patient clench a bullet in his or her teeth as a way to cope with the extreme pain of surgical procedures without anesthesia. The theory goes that patients undergoing surgery would be given a stick of wood or a pad of leather to bite on in order to concentrate their attention away from the pain and also to protect against biting their own tongues. A bullet is said to have been an impromptu battlefield alternative.

So when you face some task or decision that you hate to make, you can say, “I just have to bite the bullet and do it.”

This can apply to everyday situations like cleaning your house, or more serious situations such as filing your tax returns or buying health insurance.

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本文仅代表作者本人观点，与本网立场无关。欢迎大家讨论学术问题，尊重他人，禁止人身攻击和发布一切违反国家现行法律法规的内容。

Nelly Min is a journalist at the China Daily website.