Nelly Min

Reader's question:?

New Yorker Barry Hoggard draws a line in the sand when it comes to online privacy. In May he said farewell to 1251 Facebook friends by deleting his account of four years to protest what he calls the social network's eroding privacy policies. Could you explain “draw a line in the sand”?

My comments:

To draw a line in the sand is a figure of speech meaning ‘to create or declare an artificial boundary and imply that crossing it will cause trouble.’ It means you are setting a boundary, or limits. It is based on the idea of literally making a mark in sand to show someone they cannot move across it.

Example: He drew a line in the sand by giving his roommate an ultimatum about his sloppiness – he had to start cleaning up after himself or move out.

He draws a line in the sand when it comes to online privacy. It means his online privacy is very important to him, and having it violated is not acceptable.

Related stories:

What's the catch?

Marriage material

Nuts and bolts

Across the board

Be in someone’s shoes

In that vein

The devil you know…

Right out of the gate

Leap-frog

Up the ante

loose ends

Nose-bleed section

Off the rails

Keeping up with the Jones's

Benefits package

Closed-door talk

March Madness

On-again,off-again

本文僅代表作者本人觀點，與本網立場無關。歡迎大家討論學術問題，尊重他人，禁止人身攻擊和發布一切違反國家現行法律法規的內容。

Nelly Min?is a journalist at the China Daily website.