It may be straining at a gnat, but it certainly strains my powers of understanding.
There are some people who can strain at a very small gnat and swallow a herd of circus elephants.
It would strain out gnats and not strain at a gnat.
That is the modern equivalent to the mote and the beam, and the gnat and the camel.
There is not a gnat's whisker between them.
That would be to strain at a gnat and to swallow a camel.
He accepts the gnat of principle but strains at the camel of making it work.
We are in danger, if we accept the new clause, of creating a camel to strain at one or two gnats.
