Browse Definitions :

Nip it in the butt or in the bud?

Writing for Business

Which is correct?

At the C-level management meeting, the CEO said that he knew there was a rumor starting to circulate about positions being outsourced offshore and he wanted to nip it in the ____.
a. butt
b. bud


Answer: b.

Explanation:
You can imagine a use for “nip it in the butt” — you could deter someone that way but it doesn’t seem like office-appropriate behavior.

The actual saying is “nip it in the bud.” The meaning is to take care of a problem in its early stages before it gets too big to manage easily.

Here’s Paul Brians on the question:

“To nip a process in the bud is to stop it from flowering completely. The hilariously mistaken ‘nip it in the butt’ suggests stimulation to action rather than stopping it.”

It’s surprising how often “nip it in the butt” appears, especially online. I think this is yet another case of people mishearing something and not seeing it in print (because they don’t read enough, I’m thinking).

There are lots of examples of misuse, even within the media, especially the sports media (just saying):

From USA Today:

“These were two crucial points for us,” said Bailey, who has four goals and nine points during a six-game point streak. “If you don’t get them, they’ll nip you in the butt at the end of the year.”

From Scout.com:

 but I realized that if something starts to not feel good you’ve got to nip it in the butt quickly and not just keep going and get into a bigger problem 

From the Turf Show Times:

“Hopefully both sides will realize they caused this mess by letting people who are litigation experts lead negotiations, and next time, when this happens again, they’ll nip it in the butt before it causes a problem.”

From NJ.com:

“If the people around you are negative thinkers, it’s like having wolves at the door. It becomes an emotionally contagious atmosphere. Managers have to nip it in the butt. Once a company is in freefall, it’s too late.”

Then, again, the expression is occasionally used to good effect, whether or not the writer knows the correct expression:

From the Philadelphia Enquirer:

“Something dangerous is going on in the world of women’s underwear, and I want to nip it in the butt. Sorry. I am referring, of course, to Spanx. If you don’t know what Spanx are, I have one word for you: Girdles.”

So there you have it. If you want to use “nip it in the butt” for a bit of wordplay, I have no quarrel with you. But if you’re just writing about stopping a small problem before it gets out of hand, save your dental work — the correct expression is “nip it in the bud.”

Dig Deeper on Writing for Business

Networking
  • remote infrastructure management

    Remote infrastructure management, or RIM, is a comprehensive approach to handling and overseeing an organization's IT ...

  • port address translation (PAT)

    Port address translation (PAT) is a type of network address translation (NAT) that maps a network's private internal IPv4 ...

  • network fabric

    'Network fabric' is a general term used to describe underlying data network infrastructure as a whole.

Security
  • DNS over HTTPS (DoH)

    DNS over HTTPS (DoH) is a relatively new protocol that encrypts domain name system traffic by passing DNS queries through a ...

  • governance, risk and compliance (GRC)

    Governance, risk and compliance (GRC) refers to an organization's strategy for handling the interdependencies among the following...

  • total risk

    Total risk is an assessment that identifies all the risk factors associated with pursuing a specific course of action.

CIO
  • enterprise IT (enterprise-class IT)

    Enterprise-class IT (also known as enterprise-grade, or enterprise IT) is hardware, software and other IT services designed to ...

  • microtargeting

    Microtargeting (also called micro-niche targeting) is a marketing strategy that uses consumer data and demographics to identify ...

  • business process

    A business process is an activity or set of activities that accomplish a specific organizational goal. Business processes should ...

HRSoftware
  • employee onboarding and offboarding

    Employee onboarding involves all the steps needed to get a new employee successfully deployed and productive, while offboarding ...

  • skill-based learning

    Skill-based learning develops students through hands-on practice and real-world application.

  • gamification

    Gamification is a strategy that integrates entertaining and immersive gaming elements into nongame contexts to enhance engagement...

Customer Experience
  • Microsoft Dynamics 365

    Dynamics 365 is a cloud-based portfolio of business applications from Microsoft that are designed to help organizations improve ...

  • Salesforce Commerce Cloud

    Salesforce Commerce Cloud is a cloud-based suite of products that enable e-commerce businesses to set up e-commerce sites, drive ...

  • Salesforce DX

    Salesforce DX, or SFDX, is a set of software development tools that lets developers build, test and ship many kinds of ...

Close