The Teacher introduces us to three idioms connected with horses.
To eat like a horse.
Straight from the horse's mouth.
To flog a dead horse
Hello, I’m a very interesting and intelligent man.
And this is Fred, who, as you may have noticed, is a horse.
Today Fred and I are going to be helping you to improve your English.
I bet you’ve never been taught by a horse before.
Hungry, isn’t he? In fact, he eats all the time. He eats like a horse – of course he does – he is a horse.
In English, if someone eats a lot we can say ‘he eats like a horse’.
To eat like a horse. To eat a lot.
[Neighing and other horsy noises.]
What's that you say Fred?
Ah, just that silly noise horses make.
Anyway, I heard it straight from the horse’s mouth.
We use this idiom when we've got some information directly from the person responsible for it. For example: my boss is going to fire me.
Yes, it’s true. I heard it straight from the horse’s mouth.
It means my boss told me directly.
I didn’t hear it from anyone else. Sad news, I’m afraid… Fred’s died.
Which means there's no point in trying to get him work any more.
How do we make a horse work? Yes, that's right, by hitting it, or as we say, ‘flogging it’.
Our next horse idiom: ‘to flog a dead horse’. Which as you can see is completely pointless.
‘To flog a dead horse’.
This means to waste effort on something that we have no chance of succeeding at.
I sometimes feel like I’m flogging a dead horse when I’m teaching.
My students, they never seem to learn… I don't quite understand what the problem is…..very frustrating…
[Horse noises]
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