[Ads-l] "on the nose"

[Jonathan Lighter]

I checked UrbanD but came up with nothing.

One of the stupidest and most opaque innovations I've ever seen, since it
seems to be a willful perversion of one established meaning: 'exact.'

Exactitude is now a transgression, just as "subversion" is now a principle
artistic virtue.

I'm not surprised. But perhaps not for the reason people who use this
abomination might think.

JL



On Mon, Apr 6, 2015 at 12:24 AM, ADSGarson O'Toole <
adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       ADSGarson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "on the nose"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Thanks Jon and Ben for pointing to this interesting use of the phrase
> "on the nose".
>
> I see evidence that this sense can be traced back to the late 1960s
> and 1970s in the domain of scripts and reviews. I will try to verify
> the citations when I have time - assuming someone does not find
> earlier occurrences.
> Garson
>
>
> On Sun, Apr 5, 2015 at 11:35 PM, Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at gmail.com> wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at GMAIL.COM>
> > Subject:      Re: "on the nose"
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > On Sun, Apr 5, 2015 at 8:47 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> >>
> >> More on "Unbroken":
> >>
> >>  "Edifying, beautifully-made, but a bit monotonous and on the nose."
> >>
> >>
> http://www.bostonherald.com/entertainment/movies/movie_reviews/2014/12/angelina_jolie_s_aim_is_true_in_unbroken
> >>
> >> Unsubtle? Obvious? Not in the D's (viz., OED, UrbanD).
> >
> > This sense of "on the nose" appears fairly frequently in reviews and
> > recaps online. This UD entry covers it:
> >
> > ---
> >
> http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=on%20the%20nose&defid=5833388
> > on the nose
> > Unsubtle or overly and clumsily direct. Used when characters in a
> > narrative leave no room for subtext with their eye-rollingly obvious
> > dialogue. Not a general term for bad writing.
> > "Excuse me, but I don't quite think we should have Helga say 'I am
> > sad. I hate you and you smell.' It's a bit on the nose."
> > ---
> >
> > As does Wiktionary:
> >
> > ---
> > https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/on_the_nose
> > 3. (idiomatic) Unimaginative; over-literal; lacking nuance. "Wearing
> > that floral dress to a garden party was a little on the nose, wouldn't
> > you say?"
> > ---
> >
> > ...with a couple of citations from online reviews:
> >
> > https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Citations:on_the_nose
> >
> > --bgz
> >
> > --
> > Ben Zimmer
> > http://benzimmer.com/
> >
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