Straight from the Horse’s Mouth
Language is life more than grammar rules. Idioms are the most vivid part of English. An idiom is a phrase where the words together have a meaning that is different from the literal meaning. It is estimated that there are at least twenty-five thousand idiomatic expressions in the English language. Sometimes idioms are quite hard for foreign learners or even native speakers to understand, because the meaning of a whole can’t be precisely deducted from the meanings of the parts. We have an interesting example—“Straight from the horse’s mouth” here to illustrate more about idioms.
The reason why I choose this idiom is that this phrase not only illustrates the difficulties of understanding idioms literally but also provides us a good chance to know something about American history and culture. Getting information straightly from the horses’ mouth sounds silly because horses, as far as we know, don’t talk in a natural language. However, we can’t understand an idiom literally. Talking about the origin of this idiom also make us give a glance at American society in 1910s.
Knowing both the origin and modern usage of this idiom, we can well understand the meaning of “Straight from the horses’ mouth”. This unusual-sounding English idiom was derived from the world of horse racing, the gambling which was really popular in American in early 1910s. Tips on which horse is a likely winner circulate amongst punters. The most trusted authorities are considered to be those in closest touch with the recent form of the horse, that is, stable lads, trainers etc. “From the horse's mouth” is supposed to indicate one step better than even that inner circle, that is, the horse itself. Nowadays, if you get information about something straight from the horses’ mouth, you get it from someone who is involved in it and has direct personal knowledge of it. This idiom means the information resource is authoritative and reliable.
This idiom is unusual-sounding but frequently used. For instance, when you are