expired equines

[Laurence Horn]

There's also (again, not literally) "feeding a dead horse".  57 hits,
not including the one I recall from a novel I once read.  Several
involve a metaphor for pointlessly putting money into an old car (or
less often a house), although it also comes up as a simile for
alimony.

LH

At 3:45 PM -0400 4/27/10, victor steinbok wrote:
>Another new one for me, from the pen of Adam Serwer:
>
>http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=04&year=2010&base_name=what_the_new_black_panther_cas
>>  Also, _not_to_cremate_a_dead_horse_, but conservative obsession
>>with this case is another example of the phenomenon of conservative
>>epistemic closure.
>
>
>Following a brief search, I found only a couple of other instances
>where the phrase was not used in its literal sense:
>
>http://www.redszone.com/forums/showpost.php?s=f254985ea3f8a4f1552001bd80568cbb&p=1334031&postcount=7
>>  I'd rather not make the playoffs in '06 to make a playoff run
>>beginning the next year and rebuilding the weakest part of our team
>>for the next few years. I'm _cremating_a_dead_horse_, but I still
>>think this was a great trade.
>
>http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05012/440853-126.stm
>>  KOVACEVIC: I am so weary of this topic from my previous beat that
>>I happily fast-forward to the next
>>_without_cremating_the_dead_horse_ ...
>
>http://1337planet.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=348&st=0&p=6414&hl="dead%20horse"&fromsearch=1&#entry6414
>>  From now on when I want to know how to cremate a dead horse by
>>beating it, I'll ask BS.
>>  This post has been edited by Undertow: 05 September 2006 - 05:17 PM
>
>Apparently, the horse has been beaten so much that it's time to cover
>up the crime by cremating it...
>
>Well, it seems exactly how one gamer felt too--after five posts that
>involved the line about "beating a dead horse", someone (comment #18)
>finally wrote on a thread,
>
>http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=711961893
>>  Whoever that finally disbands the guild imo will gain a lot of
>>respect for _finally_cremating_that_dead_horse's_corpse_ and
>>spreading its ashes all over lorderon and of outlands!
>
><Also here:
>http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/search.html?characterId=778307992&sid=1>
>
>Actually, he's not alone (comment at 10:18pm):
>
>http://www.tnr.com/blog/the-spine/my-daughter-biden
>>  I sympathize with you, Tep, I really do, but that horse has been
>>dead for nine months and it's been stinking for eight so maybe it's
>>time to stop kicking it. You're fouling your shoes. ... So who's it
>>going to be, Tep? McCain/Palin? Obama/Biden?
>>_Time_to_cremate_that_dead_horse_of_yours_.
>
>http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showpost.php?s=85afc728dded471a7ea88914c0347166&p=627199&postcount=25
>>  BTW i am going to cremate the dead horse honorable moderators. i
>>know this is not the time or the place for this debate
>
>It seems, in most cases--EXCEPT Serwer's, of course--"cremating a dead
>horse" actually does imply that it will no longer be beaten, kicked,
>flogged, flagellated, etc.
>
>VS-)
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org