APAD: hatchet job

Definition

   harsh attack on someone's work

 

Examples

   1) Severe criticism of someone is like doing a hatchet job with an axe.

   2) The scathing review of the new play was clearly a hatchet job.

 

Etymology

   The term likely originates from the imagery of using a small axe to brutally

   destroy something.

 

Synonyms

   character assassination, smear campaign, malicious criticism

 

- englishdaily626.com [edited]

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The thin-skinned Cambridge biochemist was a bundle of nerves expecting hatchet

jobs when the first volume of his magnus ops, Science and Civilisation in China,

went to the press in 1954. Prejudices against the Chinese were deep-rooted in

the west, which was not helped by the nation's turning Red in 1949. Joseph Needham

(李约瑟) was no sinologist and had no formal history training. He was a left-wing

scientist in love with his Chinese mistress and her native land. For the past

two years, he had become the persona non grata in the eyes of western

governments after denouncing the Americans for biological warfare by parachuting

cholera-ridden rodents in the Korean War. Against this frigid backdrop, to

challenge traditional biases head-on by publishing a book exalting Chinese

ingenuity was risky at best.