| 词源 |
nail a lie to the counter. Early country store proprietors of- ten protected themselves against the many types of bogus mon- ey in circulation by keeping a copy of Day’s New York Bank Note List and Counterfeit Detector (1826) on the shelf by the cashbox. They have also been said to have nailed all counterfeit coins they had accepted to the counter as an aide against clerks being cheated in the future and as a warning to would-be shar- pies trying to pass bad money in the store. Some say that this practice was the inspiration for the Americanism to nail a lie to the counter, “to expose anything false.” |