beat around the bush vs lose the thread

beat around the bush

verb
  • To delay or avoid talking about something difficult or unpleasant. 

  • To treat a topic, but omit its main points, often intentionally. 

lose the thread

verb
  • To get distracted and lose track of something (one's train of thought, a conversation). 

How often have the words beat around the bush and lose the thread occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )