A: This winter is not very cold but many people have caught a serious flu. B: Isn’t that true! Several of my friends were hit and ran high fevers for a few days. A: Children in my daughter’s class are dropping like flies too. Note: This idiom refers to a large number of people either falling ill or dying. The origin of this phrase is unclear, but the expression seems to suggest how fragile these insects are. Flies do, for example, have fragile life spans. In fact, the Center for Insect Science Education Outreach says, “The average lifespan of a fly in a lab is 26 days for a female, and 33 days for a male.” That’s pretty short. Indeed, once a fly hatches from their pupal stage, it’s not long before they drop dead. The idiom is known from around the turn of the 20th century. |