"Beat Around the Bush"

[Joseph McCollum]

On Wed, 29 Mar 2000 19:57:43 -0500 "Dennis R. Preston"
<preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU> writes:
>Holy Makrel!
>
>Just what I needed. A defination of "beat around the bush" (which I've
>said since I was three or four) as "tergiversate," which I can
morphologize
>out but have never heard nor said. No wonder he was your guru. He knew
>swell words.
>
>dInIs
>
My desk dictionary says tergiversate:  1.  To become a renegade:
apostatize
(a more natural meaning of "turn one's back?")  2.  to use subterfuges:
equivocate.

tergiversation:  1.  desertion of a cause, party, or faith
                            2.  evasions of a straightforward action or
clear-cut statement:
                equivocation.

It doesn't exactly sound like "beat around the bush."

I'll admit I hadn't heard of "bodega" except in the movie "The Birds"
which was set in
Bodega Bay, California.