1) Smells Like... Something

In many TV shows having to do with murder (and there are plenty of them), I’ve heard the following exchange:

His breath smells like bitter almonds. So he was poisoned with cyanide

They’re either saying

• bitter almonds smell like cyanide

or

• cyanide smells like bitter almonds.

If you say X smells like Y, you mean that X is the new smell and Y is the familiar one. However, on these shows, people seem to smell cyanide a lot, yet I’ve never seen them smell or taste bitter almonds. That’s good since bitter almonds can be lethal (see here). So there should be mystery where bitter almonds are used and the cops say

• His breath smells like cyanide. So he was poisoned with bitter almonds.*

I don’t know what either one smells like.

2) Rotten Eggs

In real life: My Darling grew up in Pittsburgh when it was still a steel-mill city. She said she often smelled something that

smelled like rotten eggs.

It was sulfur. But in telling me this, she assumes I’ve smelled rotten eggs. I haven’t. But I have smelled other things that I was told smell like rotten eggs.

I think the phrase

smells like rotten eggs

is often used by people who’ve never actually smelled rotten eggs.

3) Cardboard and Matzoh

A blog post by Scott (see here), and my post about his post (see here), brought up the question:

Does matzoh taste like cardboard?

I doubt any of us have actually tasted cardboard.

My proofreader once accidentally did, while eating takeout from a paper container. He says (1) it doesn’t taste like matzoh, and (2) it doesn’t taste like food — which matzoh does.

4) Dog Food

I’ve heard the cliché insult:

Your cooking is so bad that it tastes like dog food.

I’ve never eaten dog food. Maybe it tastes good.

5) When X Smells Like Y

If someone says X smells like Y, then:

a) If people know what Y smells like but not X, that’s informative. b) If people know what X smells like but not Y, that’s not informative. c) If I hear that X smells like rotten eggs and Y smells like rotten eggs, then I know X and Y smell the same — even though I don’t know what rotten eggs smell like. Oh wait — I do. They smell like X or Y!

6) How do the following fit into this discussion?:

a) The Nirvana song Smells Like Teen Spirit, video here. b) The Weird AI song Smells Like Nirvana, video here.