Simile: like *substance* through a tin horn

Garson O'Toole adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM
Wed Apr 4 18:07:47 UTC 2012


George Thompson wrote:
> This put me in mind of "tinhorn gambler" n. a cheap gambler, esp. one who
> acts showily (acc. to the OED, which dates it to 1885).

Thanks for your response George. Our posts apparently crossed one
another. On the Wombats list Jane Steinberg also mentioned tin horn
gambler in a follow-up message.

List member Michael Quinion has an interesting discussion of tinhorn
gambler here:
http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-tin2.htm

Quinion associates the term tinhorn with a chute made of tin that dice
traveled through.

John Cowan on Wombats noted the existence of a website with the
following domain name:
http://shitthroughatinhorn.com

Garson

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