Random Thursday

Time for amazing Animal facts from Doug Lennox's The Little Book of Answers! These factoids regarding animals has been really intriguing since they sometimes have nothing to do with animals at all!

(image borrowed from Wikipedia)

Unknown contestants earned the nickname "dark horse" back when Sam Flynn, a horse trader from Tennessee would go to town to town trading horses at auction. When it so happened that a race was held in the same town, Flynn would add a coal black racing horse in with his workhorses. This horse was called Dusky Pete. He would bet heavily on his own horse and would win. When Flynn's deception started to spread so came the warning to "beware the dark horse."

That's an interesting twist! I didn't know that!

(image borrowed from Wikipedia)

All unneutered male cats earned the nickname "Tom" from a 1760 book called, "The Life and Adventures of a Cat." The feline hero of this book was named, you guessed it, Tom. From then on all male cats who weren't neutered were called toms.

And that just gives us an eye-opened to another Tom!!

(image borrowed from The Spruce Pets)

The saying, "Never look a gift horse in the mouth" means to never examine a gift for value. The saying is traced to St. Jerome; in 400 AD he wrote a letter advising an unhappy recipient of a horse to be grateful for the gift itself and to not look for flaws. Although, it's still common practice--as it was then--to look into a newly acquired horse's mouth where you can tell its age by looking at its teeth.

Another interesting factoid that I never really knew its origins. Though, it does kind of make the "beware Trojans bearing gifts" controversial! Lol!

(image borrowed from BBC)

John T. Scopes is famous for being on trial in 1925 when he was teaching Darwin's theory of evolution at a school instead of the biblical origins of mankind. The trial shocked many people who never knew that people might be related to apes. From these exclamations came, "Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle!" And thus the phrase is still used when one is taken by surprise by something!

 

 

(image borrowed from Wikipedia)

Thomas Hobson was the owner of a livery stable in Cambridge. He was a very stubborn man who earned the nicnkame "Livery Nazi" because no matter who the customer was he would always rent the horse nearest to the stable door first. He would never rent horses out of order and became famous for this. "Hobson's choice" came to mean "take it or leave it." And that's why we say when we have no choice at all, it's a Hobson's choice!

 

 

I actually never heard of this particular choice! Lol.