Fwd: On the nose

[John McChesney-Young]

"On the nose" is reported at many Australian slang web sites to mean
"stinking." It appears to have a transferred sense as well of "going
badly," "declining," or the like, as used at e.g.:

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=4994

Australian literature on the nose?

By Georgina Hibberd - posted Monday, 9 October 2006

Is Australian literature suffering a slow and painful death? The
study of Australian literature is certainly suffering a decline in
popularity. Australian readers don't feel the need to pick up local
product over others. The idea of a national literature in Australia
is fast becoming a very small idea indeed.

A glance at the latest Ladbrokes odds for the Nobel Prize in
literature reveals a single Australian name - that of Gerald Murnane.
The sparsity of Australian names is not surprising. Combined with a
number of events in the Australian literary world in the past months,
it is clear that the reputation of Australian literature in its home
country is on the nose...

(end quote)

John

***

At 10:32 AM -0800 11/5/06, Arnold M. Zwicky wrote:

>a puzzling usage sent on by john lawler.  anyone have any insight
>into it?

...
>>  Tuesday's vote has implications for the 2008 US presidential
>>  election, writes New York correspondent David Nason

...
>>  The mood on Main Street, Carville said, was unmistakable. George
>>  W. Bush's handling of the Iraq war was so on the nose that 50 or
>>  more House of Representative seats could go blue...


--


*** John McChesney-Young  **  panis~at~pacbell.net  **   Berkeley,
California, U.S.A.  ***

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