Friday, January 15, 2016

word usage - Tricky phrasal verb "to dance out"


Is the following sentence correct:




The best way to get your sanity back is to settle a little party and dance it out.



Am I using the p.v. to dance out correctly in this context?


Btw. What to dance something out means? I have first encountered it in the following context:



You know what? If there’s anything I’ve learned in this life, it’s that donuts are delicious and that sometimes, you just gotta dance. You just gotta get up out of your seat and rock it, as hard as you can. Even if you’ve had a long day. No — especially if you’ve had a long day. You just gotta crank some music and dance it out. It might be the only way you get your sanity back. And it doesn’t matter where you are or if you’re surrounded by strangers. At least that’s the theory one guy had when he (wearing a tuxedo, naturally) started a dance party on a train in Perth, Australia.




Answer



"Dance it out" is not, to the best of my knowledge, a common phrase. The writer likely invented the phrase here.



There IS a common idiom, "work it out", meaning, to solve a problem by applying sufficient effort. I think the writer here is playing on that idiom to say that a person can solve his problem by dancing. That is, instead of "working [the problem] out", he will "dance [the problem] out". The problem here is stress, so the statement is not irrational. It seems plausible to say that one could overcome stress by dancing or some other energetic but fun activity.


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