"The bull is off the nickel."

[Jonathan Lighter]

Way back in 1964 (actually it was just within the past hour on the SciFi Channel), _The Twilight Zone_ aired an episode whose introductory passage (spoken of course by Rod Serling) included the phrase, "It certainly sounds like the bull is off the nickel" (i.e., it sounds like arrant nonsense).

  Google yields no independent appearances. Possibly the buffalo nickel is now such ancient history that the phrase seems to make no sense.

  Or was this a Serlingism, pure and simple ?

  JL


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