whiff of troll

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flickering shadows

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What's the meaning of 'Whiff of troll'


if someboday said to you: '' You have more than a whiff of troll"
 

MikeNewYork

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My guess is the speaker is calling the listener a troll.

There is no reason to capitalize "Whiff" in your question. The question should end with a question mark.

In your next sentence, "If" should be capitalized. There should be no space before the second "you". The final one should end with a period/full stop.
 

Raymott

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A whiff is a faint smell. The person has more than a faint smell of troll. He is not actually claiming that the person is a troll, but saying that he believes it to be a strong possibility.
 

Tdol

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The person is suspicious but has not seen anything conclusive yet.
 

flickering shadows

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Thanks to all posters above who have enriched my topic with new informative posts. My questions are:

- Where I can use this idiom?
- How often it used in common spoken English?
- Can any body give me an example of a sentence on how to correctly use it ?


Sorry for being so demanding, but I really love English and I need to go deeper in it
 

MikeNewYork

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It is not common and I wouldn't worry about it.
 

JMurray

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not a teacher

As Mike says, the specific phrase "a whiff of troll" is not common and I'm not sure that I've seen it before. However, the use of "whiff" generally to mean a suspicion/trace/hint/suggestion of something is common enough and you can find some examples here: http://fraze.it/n_search.jsp?q=whiff&l=0

Examples in the link include:
the whiff of failure
a whiff of creepiness
a whiff of doom
the unmistakable whiff of chaos
a strong whiff of authenticity
 

Barb_D

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If you moderate a forum and believe someone is there just to cause trouble, you could say it to that person.
 

MikeNewYork

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When I moderated forums, there were many times when it was more than a whiff. :roll:
 

Tdol

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But it usually starts as a whiff, then gets worse. :argue:
 

emsr2d2

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One of a moderator's jobs is to get rid of the whiff before it becomes a stench. ;-)
 
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