[OT] Re: Python training time (was)

[Paul Rubin]

"Brandon Van Every" <vanevery at 3DProgrammer.com> writes:
> >> From: Laura Creighton [mailto:lac at strakt.com]
> >>
> >> Sometimes we screw up big time, sometimes we hit it on the nose.
> 
> No, that metaphor is "hit the nail on the head," or "nail it."  In fact,
> come to think of it, I think either the original poster is guilty of a mixed
> metaphor, or Americans don't use the metaphor he's using.

"On the nose" is a standard US metaphor for doing something precisely.
The connotation is a little bit different than "nail it" which means
more "get it done completely, so there's nothing left to add to it".
Example: say you want to look something up on page 336 of a 700 page
book, and you open the book to about halfway through, but instead of
having to then flip pages to get where you wanted, you find you've
opened it directly to page 336, right on the nose.  Or you could
measure the runtime of a program and find it's not 59.7 seconds or
60.3 seconds, but 60.0 seconds right on the nose.