Long In the Tooth

[00:00] Oh, we doing under Google rules that was the player super excited told us we had to
[00:12] said we said we signed up for it. In the end, it's going to be better and more true than
[00:21] Google can give you.
[00:23] Straight from the horse's mouth. Was that about Mr. And the in the meaning is
[00:36] that is the most accurate information because I got it from the person who is going to tell
[00:41] me, right?
[00:42] Right. This is a not second hand, not second hand is direct information straight from the
[00:47] horse's mouth. Why is that a phrase?
[00:50] Well, this must go back to your courier idea, right? The person sending a message from town
[00:56] to town is often riding a horse. So they get it straight from the horse and then it just
[01:05] Yeah.
[01:06] But are we talking about like early Americas or like the early postal service? Are we talking
[01:12] about, you know, 1400s and, you know, like the Pony Express, for example, feels Pony Expressy.
[01:19] It does feel Pony Expressy. Now that you said harbor, you said Mr. Ed was in the Pony Express.
[01:24] That's correct. Yeah. Okay. Lived a long and happy life. All that peanut butter kept them
[01:29] alive. So long. Yeah, it's super food. It is super food. That's right. Peanut butter
[01:36] and hay. It's a good diet. Keeps you regular. Straight from the horse's mouth. It's strange
[01:45] because horses don't talk, of course, except Mr. Ed. Is it possible that you could get
[01:53] or unless you've done a bunch of drugs. Is it possible that you could get other information
[01:59] out of a horse's mouth? Like if you were like if you were trying to buy a horse in the Wild
[02:05] West or something like you needed to like check their tongue or their teeth to see if
[02:10] they were strong or I don't know, like I'm just trying to figure out like what you could
[02:16] get out of a horse's mouth outside of language. You know, does that make sense? Yeah, totally.
[02:22] I don't, it's hard for me to see how that ends up in popular parlance though. I mean,
[02:31] you know, if you're a horse man. If you're from of the horse people. Exactly. Exactly. How about
[02:41] you guys? Pony Express-ish. Oh, the farmer and the cowboy should be friends. Oh, the farmer and
[02:49] the cowboy should be friends. Is that the song you sing when you're washing your hands now? And the
[02:54] farmer and the cowboy. Oh, the farmer and the cowboy. Oh, the farmer and the cowboy should be
[02:59] friends. Not familiar with that one. Yeah, don't worry about it. Anybody have thoughts on this
[03:12] before we look it up? Joey? Oh, interesting. The best, so the best I can come up with would
[03:19] be, I mean, kind of the courier thing, but just kind of like a kind of a funny way to say like,
[03:25] I got it right from the courier, you know? Okay, sure. I got this information from the mailman,
[03:32] but it's funny. Yeah, that's kind of a joke way to say that. Sure. So I don't say this often,
[03:41] but I think Coalson was right. What? According to writingexplained.org, which just interrupted me
[03:51] with an annoying ad. Let me close this ad. Come on. Are you serious? It comes from the practice
[04:04] of examining a horse's teeth to determine its age. For example, long in the tooth refers to the fact
[04:12] that horses grow older, teeth grow older. Another related phrase is don't look to gift horse in the
[04:22] mouth. The idea. Oh, yeah, I don't know how that's related. It doesn't explain that. But the idea
[04:30] behind straight from the horse's mouth is that you have come directly from examining the horse
[04:34] to relay information about its age and condition. Okay. Right. So horse racing, not couriers it
[04:43] looks like. The other one that I'm seeing is the most trusted authorities for inner information on
[04:50] these horses was the trainers and stable lads. And so if you're closer than even than those
[04:58] people, then you're getting it from the horse itself is the sort of notional idea. So if you're
[05:04] racing, if you were betting on horse racing, the earliest printed version that I'm finding is May
[05:14] of 1913. And that was related to horse racing, not selling horses. I mean, that seems to be the
[05:27] idea. But I mean, works fairly well either way. I seen the idea of don't give a look a gift horse
[05:36] in the mouth is basically if somebody gives you a horse, don't it like check its teeth when you
[05:46] open its mouth and look at his teeth in it. They're like super long and it's a super super old like
[05:51] just appreciate the gifts for what it is. Just take the horse. Okay, good. See, that was that was
[05:59] super old. That was the fourth one. I didn't ask. Oh, my goodness. Well, it may go back even further.
[06:06] It's probable that Heywood, who's the guy from 50. Oh, yeah. obtain the phrase from a Latin text
[06:12] of St. Jerome, the letter to the Ephesians, circa AD 14 400 rather. No Lee equidentes in BCR a donati.
[06:21] Wow. What? How old is that? 80 400. So the horse reddish question got us to 80 400. It's a world
[06:37] record. It's the it's the magic of the game. This is a special horse related episode. So yeah,
[06:49] alright, so I think we added. Okay, so classically with these phrase things we go Shakespeare. Yep.
[06:55] Pliny the Elder falconry falconry. And I think we've also I think we've added cats or no cat
[07:05] nine tails or all the cats ones. Sure. I think we can add horses to this too because I bet we're
[07:12] going to come across a bunch more that are like horse related. Okay, because because horse people
[07:19] are very good at coming up with. Yeah, they have a lot of things. I feel like people around the horse
[07:26] racing community have probably come up. Well, we've done horse ones before. Yeah, what was the
[07:33] what was the wire? Yep. And I and I thought it was we were clipping the wire so the bomb wouldn't
[07:39] go off and it was really about horse racing. Right? Yeah. So yeah, we've done this before.
[07:47] So this adds this is the fifth thing then. So it's cats, horses, falconry, Shakespeare and
[07:53] Pliny the Elder. Pretty much all phrases come from these five things. And in our eight week hiatus
[08:03] from the NBA, we're going to write a thesis on this. Wow. And you'll get you'll get constant
[08:09] updates, fans. Look forward to that. Just us dryly reading our thesis.
[08:17] We're gonna make Joey read it. Oh, good. It'll sound better when he does it.
[08:23] Welcome to my thesis.
[08:31] Footnote, minor googling.
[08:32] PSA to clear your search history after listening to this show.
[08:50] Coalson, are you sated? I am feel like. Yeah, I think it's great.