When examined, or just because it’s weird on its own.
Example: Beat a dead horse
- You whip a horse to go faster
- It dies from being whipped too much
- You still want the horse to go faster
- You continue to whip it
When examined, or just because it’s weird on its own.
Example: Beat a dead horse
I’ve heard that it means pints and quarts, referring to beers. I feel like I’ve also heard it was a typesetter thing.
The typesetter one makes so much sense, since handling mirror images of letter you will definitely get your p and q mixed up.
The Wikipedia entry on that one is a fun read. I’ve heard most of these possible origins before, but nobody is actually sure of the true origin of the phrase. It’s kind of frustrating, but also pretty neat that we still use a phrase long after we forgot where it came from.