I need some erudite person out there to help me with an idiomatic expression...?

Question

what is the meaning of the expression "breaking the bubble?" Please include various ways to use that expression... I'm not sure if I had the correct usage in a poem I wrote... megakudos to the person who helps me with this one!

Answer 1

The bubble bursts: a very happy or successful period of time suddenly ends.

Their first argument burst the bubble.

Aloha

Answer 2

"Breaking the Bubble"--a bubble is a very fragile thing. When this phrase is used it usually means that an idea, a hope, a dream has been lost by a quick senseless motion, or by random chance and happenstance.

Where I come from(the south) we say busted that bubble--same thought, just in our language. The example that comes to mind is:

A girl has always dreamed of winning homecoming. She believes that she has all the support she needs. A new girl shows up and wins the vote. The first girl has had her bubbled burst by happenstance.

In my work with the mentally ill--I burst a lot of bubbles. "You are not going to get rich through a delivery by UPS. No your son is NOT under our house." My clients really hope and believe these things. I burst their bubble when I tell them different.

There--two examples, one random, one specific.

Hope this helps.

Answer 3

"breaking the bubble" refers to any potentially fragile opinion/idea that a person has, and is a direct analogy of (e.g.) a soap bubble, which holds itself well, but is so fragile that the whole thing disappears when broken.

So say I had the idea that I was the sexiest man alive (patently not true) and then I went to chat up some girl. She gives me the blowout. That girl has just burst my bubble of belief in my sexiness.

The .com bubble was another one. The idea was that the net was an indomitable business proposition, and anyone who got in on it would be mega wealthy to the end of time...those ideas were shattered when the .com revolution turned out to be a bit of a bust. The bubble was broken, because the idea itself proved false.

In relation to the "successful period" explanation given above, that *is* true to a certain extent, but only because the success itself gives rise to the idea of invulnerability, or everlasting perfection, etc.

Hope that helps.

Answer 4

I think the most amazing example I've ever read of "breaking the bubble" was done by the famous SF author James Blish in around 1952 (nothing new under the sun!!) in his story "Surface Tension". Here is the synopsis:

"Of Blish's short stories, his most famous are the 'Pantropy' stories (collected in The Seedling Stars), in which humans are modified to live in various alien environments, this being easier and vastly cheaper than terraforming. The most popular of this series was Surface Tension, in which generations of microscopic aquatic humans battle with the other occupants of their world, eventually building a space ship to cross to other worlds — at the climax of the story, the two-inch long wooden spacecraft trundles along on caterpillar treads to the next puddle(!) while the crew speculate on "life in other worlds".

Obviously, the "bubble" was the roof of their own world -- and they literally broke it by breaking through into the next world over! What an amazingly imaginative use of the concept.

Hope your poem does as well -- maybe you can post it so we can see?

Answer 5

I think the expression is "burst my bubble". Meaning that someone or something has just destroyed my bubble of happiness.

I was in the backseat with my girlfriend and right when I was about to bust my load, a police man tapped on the window. He burst my bubble. Well maybe not burst, he fricken exploded it with prejudice.

Answer 6

When you're in your own little fantasy world or naive and unware of the reality around you are in your own little world or bubble/ If someone "bursts your bubble" it means that they showed you an insight or fact that blasts you back to reality. No body likes to be bitchslapped back to reality, hence the expression "Sorry to burst your bubble."

Answer 7

I'll assume, as both an erudite and exploratory person/ essence, it relates to the cliche,,,"Outside the Box."

Freedom of choice, manifest, and explored. Coloring outside the lines. Taking the road less traveled. Living by ones own inuit rather than being led, or strictly guided as a follower of convention.

Rev. Steven

Answer 8

I've never heard Breaking the Bubble used. Are you meaning Burst Your Bubble? That means to destroy someones dream. You most commonly hear someone say, "I don't mean to bust your bubble, but your idea has already been tried," which is to say, "I don't mean to ruin your excitement, but . . . ."

Answer 9

same as thinking outside the box.

challenging conventional norms and doing something completely out of character or accepted practice to acheive bigger and better results.

shooting everyone that doesnt have blue eyes in a small crowd to find the one girl with blue eyes,

you'll end up in jail. but the dead people wont have blue eyes, so you know who the one with blue eyes is the only one left alive.

I know, extreme, but there ya go. hahahahahahha