to the horse

[Gregory {Greg} Downing]

At 09:42 AM 7/26/99 -0400, bergdahl at ohio.edu wrote:
>There's an anecdote about Greek phjilosophers arguing about the number of
>teeth a horse had; all the arguments are deduced from premises.  No one looks
>at the animal, so devalued was empiricism.  Could this be the source of both
>expressions (though I rather like Mr. Ed)?
>

I suppose I should add this probably obvious point (I left it between the
lines when I posted last hour) --

It seems fairly likely that the bit of jingle I more or less quoted is a
deliberate play on the locution "to get it straight from the horse's mouth,"
as re-applied to a putatively talking horse.

It also occurs to me that "get it (straight) from the horse's mouth" might
be a racetrack or turf phrase -- i.e., the hot tip I have about horse x is
really solid, I got it straight from the horse's mouth (jocularly, as if the
horse had actually passed along "inside information" during a conversation)????


Greg Downing/NYU, at greg.downing at nyu.edu or gd2 at is2.nyu.edu