According to Maureen Dowd's article in New York Times (May 20) under the headline, “Remember to forget,” the European Court of Justice ruled last week that Google and other search engines can be forced to remove search results about ordinary citizens linking to news articles, websites, court records and other documents if the information is deemed “inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant” – even if it is truthful.
She wrote;
Jaron Lanier, the author of “Who Owns the Future?” and a man known as
“the father of virtual reality,” vehemently agrees (the ruling). He
thinks the ruling rebuts Big Data’s “infantile desire for immediate
gratification" where you get to know everyone else’s secrets even as
you seek to keep your own. In order for others to be free, that means
you don’t get to stuff your nose into all their orifices all the time.http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/21/opinion/dowd-remember-to-forget.html?hp&rref=opinion
I was unable to find out the meaning of the phrase “stuff one’s nose into (all) one’s orifices” in either of CED and OED, nor on Google search.
What does it mean? Is it an idiom?
Is “you don’t get to stuff …” the same in meaning as “you don’t have to stuff …”?
Best Answer
I've never heard of this term. There are idioms that are close in form and connotation, such as "stick one's nose in XYZ." I wouldn't call "stuffing one's nose into another's orifices" an idiom, but rather just creative hyperbole on behalf of the person being quoted (note - the writer is quoting Jaron Lanier here; these aren't Dowd's own words).
In my opinion, the term describes one who is excessively intrusive. Moreover, there is an aspect of vulgarity to it, which further emphasizes this sentiment.