Thursday, January 24, 2008

My horse has broken down

A taxi journey with one or two of my fellow Country Lifers is never without a surprising revelation. One girl was telling me that she was missing her riding – she couldn't go anymore because: 'My horse has broken down.' I thought this was a pretty callous way to talk about a living beast, but it turns out that this is an old, well-worn phrase amongst countrymen that was most likely reappropriated when people started driving cars. It merely means that the horse is no longer fit for riding and will now live out the rest of its days pottering about in a field. I've seen that happen to a couple of cars, too.

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