What do they mean? Please help me.
Dick
of the Ford Motor Company in 1970)
The author writes the following statements in the article:
1. I'm sometimes described as flamboyant leader and a hip-shooter, a
kind of fly-by-the-seat-of-the-pants operator.
What's the meaning of "hip-shooter" and "fly-by-the-seat-of-the-pants
operator" ?
2. ... Whenever I read in a newspaper that Lee Iacocca likes shoot
from the hip, I say to myself:"Well, maybe he's been shooting for
solong that by this time he has a pretty good idea of how to hit the
target."
What's the meaning of "soot from the hip"?
What's the "target" the author refers?
============================
Dick (CHN)
email: full...@21cn.com
Lars Eighner
<7f527187.0211...@posting.google.com>,
the lovely and talented Dick
broadcast on uk.culture.language.english:
> "The Key to Management" written by Lee Iacocca (Who is the president
> of the Ford Motor Company in 1970)
Mr. Iacocca speaks and writes American English.
> The author writes the following statements in the article:
> 1. I'm sometimes described as flamboyant leader and a hip-shooter, a
> kind of fly-by-the-seat-of-the-pants operator.
> What's the meaning of "hip-shooter" and "fly-by-the-seat-of-the-pants
> operator" ?
"Hip-shooter": see below.
"Fly by the seat of the pants": to rely on intuition, a
metaphor extended from early aviation when to "fly by the
seat of the pants" was to determine aircraft's attitude from
physical sensations rather than instruments.
> 2. ... Whenever I read in a newspaper that Lee Iacocca likes shoot
> from the hip, I say to myself:"Well, maybe he's been shooting for
> solong that by this time he has a pretty good idea of how to hit the
> target."
> What's the meaning of "soot from the hip"?
"To shoot from the hip": to make snap (i.e quick) judgments,
often without complete information. Again this is a
metaphor extended from the original context which was gun
fighting. Some gun fighters would discharge their weapons
as soon as the weapons were removed from the holster, when
the weapons would be at about hip level. The object, of
course, was to disable the opponent before the opponent
could fire his weapon. The disadvantage of shooting from
the hip is that it is difficult to attain great accuracy
when firing the weapon from this position, but with practice
some degree of accuracy could be obtained.
(Contrary to what you may have thought from watching
Westerns, pistols in the period of the American "Wild West"
were not especially reliable or accurate in even the best of
circumstances, and many face-to-face gunfights - which
weren't really very common - turned on the fact of one
party's weapon misfiring or not firing at all. Shooting
from the hip might not have been a bad tactic since owing to
the inaccuracy of the weapons it might take several shots to
settle the matter even at close quarters.)
So, a hip-shooter is one who shoots from the hip, or in
other words, tends to make hasty decisions.
> What's the "target" the author refers?
It isn't specified. In all, the meaning is "Mr. Iaccoca has
been making snap decision for so long that perhaps he has
learned to make good ones."
--
Lars Eighner -finger for geek code- eig...@io.com http://www.io.com/~eighner/
There is no subject so old that something new cannot be said about it.
--Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky
Molly
gle.com>, Dick (Dick <full...@21cn.com>) wrote
>1. I'm sometimes described as flamboyant leader and a hip-shooter, a
>kind of fly-by-the-seat-of-the-pants operator.
>
>What's the meaning of "hip-shooter" and "fly-by-the-seat-of-the-pants
>operator" ?
To shoot from the hip means to react very quickly and probably without
thought - a cowboy would draw his gun from his holster and fire it
without raising his arm. The reaction involved is usually aggressive in
some measure, albeit using words rather than bullets.
To fly by the seat of one's pants refers to an aircraft pilot who
doesn't bother to look at his instruments (if indeed he has any) but
flies the plane almost by instinct.
Both these expressions imply that the person involved doesn't actually
do much thinking, but operates from gut-reactions. When said by others,
this is a criticism; when said by the person involves, it's usually a
boast.
>2. ... Whenever I read in a newspaper that Lee Iacocca likes shoot
>from the hip, I say to myself:"Well, maybe he's been shooting for
>solong that by this time he has a pretty good idea of how to hit the
>target."
>
>What's the meaning of "soot from the hip"?
>What's the "target" the author refers?
For shoot from the hip, see above. The target is the person or
organisation that Iacocca is mouthing off about.
Since shooting from hip-level is less accurate than raising one's arm,
one is likely to make mistakes; but the implication here is that if
somebody shoots like that often enough they will become accurate.
Therefore, "maybe he's been speaking without thinking for so long that
by now the things he says are actually sensible and to the point". Yes,
it sounds a really stupid thing to say when you switch the language over
like that - that's why it is worth examining metaphors of this sort, to
spot the fallacies in them.
--
Molly
Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who
doesn't get it.