Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[faith2k]

Here's a scenario: I have been losing patience with a friend who is very arrogant and immature. Lately an incident happened that made me decide I cut the relationship with her. She thinks I turned away from her simply because of this incident, but, in fact, I have been running out of patience with her, and this incident was the last draw. In this case, can I say "she hit the bottom"?

[redset]

I've never heard 'the last draw' used in that way - it's probably a misspelling (or mis-hearing) of the phrase 'the last straw', which relates to a tale about an overloaded camel, and the one straw added to the load which was enough to make the whole weight too much to bear

I'm not really sure about 'hit the bottom' in this case. That's usually used to talk about someone feeling depressed, or reaching a bad point in their career - a 'things can't get any worse' sentiment, because you can't sink lower than the bottom! 'The last straw' is used to mean somebody has gone too far, or that you're not going to allow something to happen anymore. The idea is really that people will accept things, but if you push them too far they'll react against it. Although it's possible for a bad event to be the last straw, and cause someone to hit the bottom!

You could say something like 'our relationship hit the bottom' though (rock bottom is often used too), meaning 'things just couldn't get any worse between us'.

[faith2k]

Thank you, Redset. I think "It was the last straw." is the one I was looking for.