tin ear
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English[edit]
Pronunciation[edit]
Audio (AU) (file)
Noun[edit]
- (idiomatic) Insensitivity to and inability to appreciate the elements of performed music or the rhythm, elegance, or nuances of language.
- 1973, Thomas Cable, “A Garland of Pomposities: Comment on Halle-Keyser Prosody”, in College English, volume 34, number 4, page 593:
- Despite their careless scholarship and a less tangible quality that some would call a tin ear for poetry, Morris Halle and S. J. Keyser, as metrists, have the considerable virtue of explicitness.
- (idiomatic) Insensitivity to the nuances of the current situation or the subtleties of a craft; indifference to somebody else's attitudes, moods, and dialogue.
- 2012 August 18, “Ripping yarns: A revived spat between Japan and South Korea unsettles the United States”, in The Economist:
- Japan has often displayed a tin ear to South Korean sensitivities over the island, which it calls Takeshima, having acquired it in the process of annexing Korea.
- 2020 December 2, Philip Haigh, “A winter of discontent caused by threat of union action”, in Rail, page 63:
- With the economy as it is, I think the RMT has a tin ear to think it will find sympathy or public support for strike action. I hope sense prevails,
Translations[edit]
inability to appreciate the elements of performed music
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See also[edit]
References[edit]
- “have a tin ear”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.