Laid up with a minor illness, I took to reading one of my wife’s favorite authors. Here’s a part that made me sit up:
“Sarah came down to find a big masterful woman with a rocking horse nose, whom she had already noticed in the hotel, outside the main entrance objecting fiercely to the size of the car.”
I had no idea what the author meant, but it was explained soon enough on the follwing page.
So the question now is, what do you think is a rocking horse nose?
I hope those who know, will refain from revealing the answer (but you may feel free to identify the book, author, character, etc.).
I’d like the others to see what they can do with it. Might be fun.
Woohoo! Though honestly, if I’d run across that while reading, I probably wouldn’t have given it enough thought to figure it out. I’d think, “Big?” and move right along.
I read it (initially) as “… a rockin’ horse nose” … which made me think she just had a nose like a horse, possibly a face as well. Which she was, you know, rocking. :rolleyes:
So, to be clear it should have been punctuated “rocking-horse nose.”
Sadly, I immediately thought it was a crude ethnic slur against Jews - “rocking horse nose” equaling “beyond huge nose”, bigoted shorthand for “Jewish”. Maybe I was being overly sensitive when I read it.
I’m guessing the author didn’t mean “rocking horse-nose,” i.e. a nose that makes the woman’s face resemble that of a horse, but is nonetheless quite fetching.
So, I guess it means “big nostrils,” but I have no idea.
She’s not the most enlightened writer.