The phrase "a roundabout approach" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used to describe a method or strategy that is indirect or not straightforward in achieving a goal.
Example: "Instead of addressing the issue directly, she took a roundabout approach, hoping to ease the tension first."
Alternatives: "an indirect method" or "a circuitous strategy".
A simple greeting would probably suffice, but instead they prefer to take the roundabout approach.
The scenario behind his roundabout approach was to generate national buzz on cable news and talk radio shows that would be more boffo than any possible substance from the G.O.P. candidates' debate.
0.83 1.03 37 Get into the wrong lane at a roundabout or approaching a road junction.
Get into the wrong lane at a roundabout or approaching a road junction.
This paper uses US and Italian roundabout approach-level data to investigate models relating safety to various measures of predicted speed.
My, that is a roundabout way to approach the problem of too many people -- particularly minorities -- in prisons for simple marijuana possession and use.
As the car Rodney was travelling in approached a roundabout in Edgware, north London, the police order was given: "Attack, attack, attack".
Yet, in a roundabout way, Black's approach also led to some of the late boom's most disastrous lapses.Derivatives markets are not new, nor are they an exclusively Western phenomenon.
A rental car was timidly approaching a roundabout that must have looked like a death spiral to Richard Williams during one of his first attempts at English driving rules.
On the wrong side of the road in a £200,000 behemoth with the suspension of a meringue, I shyly approached a roundabout and my phlegmatic companion erupted, barking at me to "Make a decision!" I gave an inch of petrol and we nipped around a hatchback onto the skinny motorway, a neat and clean maneuver for which I was congratulated.
