go round the houses

go (all) round the houses

(British)

to waste time saying a lot of things that are not important before you get to the subject you want to talk about There's no need to go all round the houses, just tell me straight out what's wrong.

Common Names:

Name	Pronounced	Usage
Hopkin	HAHP-kin	Medieval English
Alesander	-	Basque
Lambert	LAHM-bert (German), LAHM-bərt (Dutch), lam-BER (French), LAM-bərt (English)	German, Dutch, French, English, Ancient Germanic
FlÓRa	-	Hungarian
Anakin	AN-a-kin	Popular Culture
Mary	MER-ee (English), MAR-ee (English)	English, Biblical