Grew up in Chicago suburbs, and yes, I’ve heard it used the way you used it.
So what are these oxen shoes for then?
(I hope it’s not tap dancing. :eek: 'Cause the thought of tap dancing oxen really scares me for some reason.)
CMC fnord!
I knew the phrase beforehand.
Still, after the Bush incident “shoe throwing” to me will always mean throwing an actual shoe at some *** who deserves contempt. A way of showing extreme dislike and disgust.
:rolleyes:
Sabotage would be more having a shoe thrown into it, though, wouldn’t it?
Indeed. In certain ambiguous, terse or contextless sentences though (such as the title of this thread), I might still initially read it as talking about sabotage.
[About as off-topic as possible]
For quaint sayings that have to do with stuff not working properly for no apparent reason, my all-time favorite is probably best reserved for when somebody goes missing from an expected place, like a cow-orker suddenly being absent from a spot he or she was just seen a moment ago, at which point the clever response to “Where did so-and-so go?” is “Went to shit and the hogs ate her/him.”
How you wortk this into the busted projector scene is up to you, but it is apt to bring you even more puzzled looks than the thrown shoe concept.
[/Aaotap]
I use it once in a while, although I have no idea where I picked it up.
Will stand corrected.
Members of my family have in past generations used bullock teams for timber jinking in remote forestry. They didn’t use farriers, as those who used horse teams did.
Maybe the difference is related to where the oxen were working on hard/frozen surfaces.
I’m a Texas boy and I’ve heard that phrase all my life.
A me too post. I live in Texas, too but I have only been around actual horses at the Houston Rodeo or the State Fair.
I’ve never used and had others look at me like 'wha???"
Ooooh, “threw a (horse)shoe”! I was going to say no, from the thread title, but yeah, I have.
My fellow Texans: Is this a cowboy thing? Perhaps the reason it is not familiar to me is I was never a cowboy type and never had much to do with horses.
It could very well be. I can definitely see someone who has worked with horses a lot using the phrase metaphorically for something that falls apart or breaks, and cowboys and horses are a natural pairing. The weird thing is, as I said, I am far from a cowboy in manner or dress. I don’t like country music, I don’t go to rodeos, have never owned a horse, have only ridden a horse once when I was 5, and in general am pretty much an urban guy. The only thing “cowboyish” about me is that I live in West Texas, where all of those things are popular.
“Head off at the pass” is an old-timey phrase?! I guess I’ll be turning 74 with you next year. Come on, not-old people still use this, don’t they?
I’ve heard it, and recognized it, but only in the context of horses. I would have figured out your metaphorical use, but it probably would have caused my eyebrow to rise, since it seems a bit forced there.
But I wouldn’t expect the average college kid to get it.
Horses still throw a shoe and your students should be able to figure out the meaning of this phrase.
I’ve heard it a lot here in Australia, and understood it to be derived from horseracing as others have said. An equivalent expression is “Pulled a hammie”. That said, the saying might get a disproportionate airing here since we tend to like our old-timey metaphors and are pretty keen on sporting ones (I imagine Americans don’t much “get on the front foot”, “do the hard yards”, or have one “go straight through to the keeper”, so maybe my experience of the shoe metaphor is not representative.)
After they do that, they can wonder about the phrase “Lick the calf all over again”.
I have recently been substituting “hamster” for “hamstring muscle.” “My hamster is chattering.” A few years from now, Dopers might wonders what the heck that was about.
What’s a horse?