Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[hela]

Dear teacher,

Would you please explain the last sentence of the following paragraph to me?

The new-style parents - mostly the ones down from London - would be in the classrooms before school, after school, chatting to teachers and pupils even popping their heads round doors while lessons where in progress, with messages about aunties or swimsuits or lost packed lunches. Lots of pupils took packed lunches. Mr Rossiter didn't like that. It somehow loosened the school's grip upon the child. It smacked of change: change smacked of chaos.

Thank you for your help.
Regards,
Hela

[Sirius]

Loosening the school's grip on the students, as described, is a change from the way things used to be.

With change there is instability or chaos.

It sounds like Mr. Rossiter doesn't want to accept any changes and prefers to keep things the way they always were.

[Brian Boyd]

When something 'smacks of' something else, it has the feeling or sense of it. When he says it 'smacks of change' he means that he can feel change coming (and if change comes, chaos will follow, in his opinion).

Another example:

Batman might survey the scene of a crime and say "This smacks of The Joker..."

He doesn't know for sure that The Joker committed the crime, but he can sense that The Joker did it, based on clues at the crime scene which match The Joker's style.

Brian
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