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Phrase: Give up the ghost
We tend to associate ghosts with death.
When something dies, we can say it’s given up the ghost.
Of course, it’s an informal term, and I wouldn’t try to comfort someone who has lost a loved one by saying they had a long and beautiful life and finally gave up the ghost.
For something to become a ghost, it must have had a life.
Give up the ghost means to die or break down and stop working. The phrase can be used informally with people and machines.
It may seem obvious, but it all depends on your definition of life.
If your definition of life means that a being is born and eventually dies, then humans, plants and animals are all alive and can technically give up the ghost.
How about human-made devices and machines, though?
We often talk about them as having a lifespan.
When they begin to break down or experience problems, we say they are nearing the end of their useful life.
When something stops working or can no longer function, we also say it’s given up the ghost.
We can apply this term to the steamroller in today’s picture.
It’s a machine from a bygone era that has been abandoned and no longer operates.
This steamroller has given up the ghost.
Machines tend to give up the ghost at the most inopportune times.
Refrigerators tend to break down on Friday evenings or just before the long holidays.
Maybe it’s Murphy’s Law.
I don’t know.
But you can be sure that it’ll be terrible timing when something gives up the ghost.
A few weeks ago, my printer and computer gave up the ghost within days.
Perhaps they had spent so much time connected one couldn’t live on without the other.
It sounds romantic, but maybe it was just planned obsolescence in action.
Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test
This post is understandable by someone with at least a 7th-grade education (age 12).
On the Flesch-Kincaid reading-ease test, this post scores 74.
The easier a passage is to read, the higher the score on a scale of 0 – 100.