Sunday, January 23, 2011

Pay through the nose and Inhale (slang)

Today's idiom is pay through the nose

To pay through the nose is to pay an extremely high price for something.

You're going to pay through the nose if  you take a taxi to the airport in Japan.
I paid through the nose to buy this guitar.  It's a rare, old one. 

There are a couple of possible origins for this odd expression. They go as follows. As early as the 17th century "rhino" was slang for money; "Rhinos" is Greek for "nose". Noses bleed and someone who pays over the odds can also be said to bleed.
The other explanation goes back to the days of the Danish invasion of Britain. 9th century Danes were particularly strict with their tax laws, especially where "foreigners" were concerned. They levied a particular tax against the Irish called the "Nose Tax"; failure to pay was met by harsh punishment - the debtor had his nose slit open. The expression only seems to have come into English at the end of the 17th century so the first one is most
likely the correct origin.

Today's slang is inhale.  It means

To eat something quickly

I inhaled the chocolate my girlfriend gave me for Valentine's Day!
The children inhaled the cookies.

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