[lit-ideas] Re: Sunday Wotsit
- From: David Ritchie <ritchierd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 17:07:38 -0700
On Sep 6, 2009, at 4:43 PM, Robert Paul wrote:
David Ritchie:
I'm as hard nosed as whatever animal is it that has a hard nose
and inspired the metaphor,
(what on earth would that be exactly...hard-headed is easy...some
misinterpretation of the rhino perhaps? and why is it that the
hardness of a nose has come to be a measure of anything? boxing
possibly?)
The only hard-nosed animal mentioned in the OED's account is a dog
with a poor sense of smell. How we get from there to stubborness is
left unclear.
Someone off-list suggested a connection with the Toucan.
Partridge has "hard a-Gilbert" (ref to port wine purveyors), "hard-
arse" (orig a kind of wooden chair), "hard as a goat's knees" (Aus.),
"hard-faced" (impudent, see also hard-faced Parliament, elected in
1919, and full of war-made millionaires), "hard neck" (impudence,
"you had the hard neck to pass the time of day with him" Anglo-
Irish), "hard O'Brien" (complimentary remark), "hard titty" (luck),
and of course older refs. like hard cheese, hard lines, hard stuff
and hard tack. Where the nose comes in is not obvious.
Hard by hard, however, are the entries for "happy as." "Happy and
Chatty," any slack-disciplined, untidy ship, "happy as a boxing
kangaroo in fog time," thoroughly discontented (does anyone know why
boxing kangaroos are unhappy in fog time?), "happy as a nun weeding
the asparagus" (does anyone know why this is a Canadian expression?)
and "happy as pigs in shit."
David Ritchie,
watching the sun come out and quite aware that he missed out on the
opportunity to hyphenate.
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