Needle of suspicion

Posted by Victoria S Dennis on September 06, 2007

In Reply to: Needle of suspicion posted by Tom on September 06, 2007

: Came across "needle of suspicion" earlier this evening.

: "Dan Brown has managed to point the needle of suspicion from one character to another skillfully."

: It sounds familiar but... not really. Obviously it has something to do with deflecting suspicion from one to another.

: Any ideas about origin?

This is evidently a blending of "point the finger of suspicion" which is an old and obvious metaphor, with the idea of a compass needle pointing north. The only question is whether it's a deliberate attempt to be clever, or just illiteracy. My money would be on the latter; this is an incompetent sentence from any point of view. Nobody points a compass needle; it points itself. And you can't point anything "from one character to another"; you can only point it AT one character AFTER another. (VSD)

• Needle of suspicion R. Berg 06/September/07
• Needle of suspicion RRC 06/September/07