Hi Anton -- on Jul 03 2019 at 14:33, you wrote:

AS> I should have quoted Dallas:

 DH>> In  other  words, "horse" is equivalent to
"perfume". We
 DH>> could say "smelled like skunk", "smelled  like 
manure",
 DH>> "smelled like perfume", and so on.

Ahh

AS> By  the  way, I have no objections to "smelled of horse"
but AS> am not
happy with "smelled like horse" and  can't  help  but AS> want
to insert an
article after `like'.

Understandable, but "like horse" is quite permissible. I think you may be
analyzing too deeply -- English is marked more by it's exceptions than it's
rules!



Cheers... Dallas

--- timEd/NT 1.30+