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Reader question: Please explain this headline (The Guardian, March 25, 2016): Michael Rosen on academy schools: ‘Local democracy bites the dust’. Bites “the dust”, what dust? My comments: Dust in this phrase refers to the dirt on the floor, or the open ground rather, the earth itself. It has nothing to do with Beijing’s polluted air and smog, thank heaven. Literally, if someone bites the dust, he has to fall to the ground to do that. And since men have no business to eat dust for a living, hence we’re not supposed to take the phrase at face value. What it really implies when we say someone is going to bite the dust is that he’s going to die. From this comes the figurative meaning of someone or something failing terribly. In our example, when local democracy is described as biting the dust, it means the democracy is all but dead at the local level. What does that mean? I don’t know. I have no idea. The whole idea of Western-style democracy is vague to me due to lack of direct experience. However, I may speculate – and venture to contend that in that locale, wherever it is, where democracy is practiced, albeit in a sort of feeble fashion, people are not turning out in droves to vote in elections and things of that nature. Or perhaps they’re not holding elections at all. Whatever it exactly is that ails the place, you can be sure that the democratic process is failing the locals. | 
