The Great American Nose

HYGIENE

Television commercials for soap, perfume, cologne, deodorant, anti-perspirant, toothpaste, mouthwash, breath mints, etc., show people's obsession with smelling good. People consider bad breath and natural body odor offensive in the United States, and the topic of these odors is so offensive that most people will not tell another person he or she has bad breath or body odor. You do not have to cover yourself with perfumes and chew gum constantly; a shower each day, clean clothes, and good dental care is enough. The following essay makes fun of the American Nose. 

THE GREAT AMERICAN NOSE

One of the strangest phenomena you will encounter in the United States is that of the Great American Nose. The American Nose may look like yours and mine, but in reality it's not. Something seems to have been left out of the American Nose. It is incapable of degrees of differentiation of odors. Whereas most of humanity is capable of smelling a wide range of odors, the American Nose can smell only two - good odors and bad odors, right odors and wrong odors. Of course, the American Nose prefers good odors and right odors. It is quite virtuous, therefore. It must have inherited all its genes directly from its Puritan ancestors.

After a careful study of the matter, I have come to the conclusion that there are only three good odors, and that all the rest are bad odors. The three good odors - artificial flowers, artificial lemons, and artificial spices - are used to mask all of the bad odors. Bad odors emanate from bathrooms, from garbage cans, from moldy things, and most of all, from human bodies. All natural odors are bad odors, as you can see, and there are hundreds of American products in the three good odors designed to mask all the bad ones. Wherever you find the Great American Nose, a hand holding a can to spray, a deodorant to roll on, an air freshener to stick up, or a cleaning solution to wipe on will not be far behind. Does the kitchen smell like cooking? Spray it with great amounts of artificial spice. Does the closet smell moldy? Fill it with odor of roses. Does a person smell sweaty? (Sin! Sin!) Roll on quantities of deodorant with scent of jasmine. Does the bathroom smell like a bathroom? Wipe everything down with scent of lemon cleaner.

Pity the poor American Nose. It is really very fragile. Yet this fragile appendage rules the American. Should the Nose detect bad odors, you will hear the American complaining loudly, and very shortly excusing itself from their presence.

You may think Americans are an independent lot, but they're not. They can't go anywhere without extra bathroom paper, disinfectant sprays and cleaners. I sometimes have the feeling that if the American civilization falls into decay, it will be because the American Nose could not tolerate the smell of it. It's remarkable to me that with such a handicap as the Great American Nose, Americans have survived this long. (Leticia Lupinska)

(Excerpted from 25 Strategies: Reading Skills for Intermediate-Advanced Students of English as a Second Language by Jacqueline Neufeld and Marion Webb).