OT: NZ use of "down to"

[Laurence Horn]

On May 4, 2012, at 1:37 PM, Amy West wrote:

> While I'm pestering the list. . .
>
> In a New Zealand news article this use of "down to" struck me as
> interesting:
>
> Elizabeth Hopper said it was down to her late husband Keith Hopper that
> the Bible was found.
>
> http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10803551
>
> While Woo State has the 2 extant vols of HDAS, they don't have a New
> Zealand dicty that I can check.
>
> ---Amy West
>
I've always wondered about the lines from the Rolling Stones' "Under My Thumb"--

It's down to me
The difference in the clothes she wears
Down to me, the change has come
She's under my thumb.

etc. Seems similar:  "down to" = 'attributable to', so the husband is responsible for finding the Bible*, just as Mick J. is responsible for causing the submissiveness of the female referent in the (somewhat retrograde) song lyrics.

LH

*Before I read the article, I was thinking that the very long-lived Keith Hopper was going to turn out to have been responsible for bringing about the entire Judaeo-Christian era, but it appears it was only that he located that one particular copy.

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