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peter
💬Casual Conversation
🎬David's home office, late afternoon, trying to finish work.
Eleanor Smith
DID THAT NEW APP PROJECT FINISH?
David Smith
Nah, it started to peter out a few weeks ago. Too much red tape.
💡
Eleanor, David's technologically illiterate mother, is asking about a work project. David responds using the phrasal verb 'peter out', meaning to diminish gradually and come to an end, implying the project lost momentum and failed. He attributes this to 'red tape', an idiom referring to excessive bureaucracy or rigid conformity to formal rules.