Hello students!
Our phrase of the day is to dodge a bullet.
A bullet is the small metal piece that is shot out of a gun,
and dodge means to move so that you escape something.
But the expression dodge a bullet doesn't specifically mean you escape from being shot.
Instead, it's used more generally to mean avoiding any situation that turns out to be disastrous or very harmful.
Let me give you an example.
A woman was dating a man who started acting controlling and abusive,
doing things like preventing her from having male friends and grabbing her by the hair when he was angry.
Fortunately, she broke up with the guy and moved to another city, so he is no longer in her life.
You could say she dodged a bullet because she avoided marrying or staying with someone
who probably would have abused her more and more over the years.
This phrase can be used for avoiding other seriously bad situations beyond physical harm.
Let's say you were thinking about investing all your money in a promising new technology company,
but then you decided not to do it.
A year later, the technology company went bankrupt.
So if you had invested, you would have lost all your money.
So your decision not to invest means you dodged a bullet.
You avoided losing your investment.
I hope you now understand clearly what it means to dodge a bullet.