facon de parler

The huntsman blows his horn, and soon the welkin rings with a chorus of brass instruments; the tufters dash into covert, and anon the cheerful note of Ponto or Gripper gives warning that a warrantable fox is on foot—well, of course, he couldn't be on horseback, but this is merely a venatorial façon de parler.

Many hostesses give their friends carte blanche invitations to luncheon; but ladies as a rule seldom avail themselves of this façon de parler, as they consider it, and prefer to await a more direct form of invitation.

That is only a façon de parler.

Neither was this poverty a relative poverty, a mere “façon de parler,” as some would maintain.

You know, when I say I shan't go out, it is in so far a façon de parler, that, as I shall be at least every other day at Mrs. Sartoris', I shall not be at home, trying my eyes.