Paying through the nose
Jeonju with an R5
This past weekend, I got to try out my new camera. My friends and I went to Jeonju Hanok Village and traditional market. There was a lot to take pictures of and film there. Last night I finished editing the video and it is so much better than the last camera. I guess you have to pay through the nose for high quality cameras. However, the feedback I have received so far has been very encouraging. I got compliments on the photos and the video. Some people say that it is not the camera but the camera operator that matters. Clearly the camera has something to do with it.
Meaning
The phrase, paying through the nose, means paying a lot of money. It feels like you are paying more than you should for something.
Example: I bought a concert ticket too late and had to pay through the nose to get in.
Origin
There is a myth related to this phrase. When the Danes (people from Denmark) conquered Ireland, they conducted a census to count the number of people there. They counted the people by counting their noses. The Danes imposed a tax system. The taxes were very high and some people couldn’t pay them. As punishment, the Danes cut their noses. They even called it the “nose tax.” A lot of people believe that is where paying through the nose comes from. If you couldn’t pay taxes, you had to pay with your nose. The Swedish poll-tax was also called a nose-tax at one point. The nose is an example of synecdoche, using a part to describe a whole. In this case, the nose is used to describe a person.
Paying through the nose is first recorded in 1666 in Italian by Giovanni Torriano. His book was about Italian proverbs. The story of the nose tax dates to the 9th century, well before the first written record of the phrase. So, it is unclear if there is a direct connection. Paying through the nose made its way into English in 1672 when Andrew Marvell wrote, “Fanaticks had bought it all up, and made them pay for it most unconscionably, and through the nose.”
Alternatively, paying through the nose may have arisen because of an earlier phrase, bore through the nose. Boring through the nose meant to completely deceive someone. It is not a phrase used today. Paying through the nose might have originated with someone being tricked into spending a lot of money.
Another explanation is that rhino (Greek for nose) was slang for money. If someone pays more than something is worth, we say that they are bleeding money. Noses also bleed, so you could bleed money through your nose according to the slang. The rhino slang dates to the 17th century. The sources I saw didn’t mention it, but the image I have is a gangster punching someone in the face until their nose bleeds to get them to pay money. I have no idea if this is part of the rhino idiom, but I would believe that.
Finally, there is also a theory that paying through the noses comes from sailing. The sailors would pay (put) the rope through the nose (front) of the ship. The rope was then used to tie the ship to a dock or used as an anchor.
See Also: Impulse buy, Out of pocket, Over a barrel
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Reference:
https://grammarist.com/idiom/pay-through-the-nose/
https://wordhistories.net/2016/11/26/to-pay-through-the-nose/
https://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/21/messages/1136.html
https://www.idioms.online/pay-through-the-nose/
https://blog.oup.com/2010/10/pay-through-the-nose/
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/nose-tax-wounds-are-still-smarting-1.377483