|
Reader question: Please explain “hold my horses” in this: “I wanted to tell you everything about the new improvements... but the big boss told me to hold my horses a few more days!” My comments: Here, the big boss tells the writer to be a little more patient, asking him to hold on to the news for a few more days. In case, for instance, there’d be still more new improvements to be made in the meantime. At least that’s what “hold my horses” suggests here, more or less. “Hold your horses” is an American idiom which harks back to the old days when wagons driven by horses were roaming the roads instead automobiles. And if we take the “horses” as the horses driving that kind of vehicle, it will be easier to understand why we sometimes call the driver, say, a messenger, to “hold his horses”. Obviously when the horses start to run, galloping away in full speed, it would be in vain if you recalled something else for the messenger to do for you. There’d be no catching up with messenger now, not by foot at any rate. At any rate, you tell the messenger to hold his horses, so you can make sure there’s nothing amiss. That’s it. American idioms are so easy to understand when they’re explained. That’s the beauty about American English. Or the beastliness about it – in the eyes of the old school master in an English school in England. To the English purists back in the home country, Americans have ruined their language. | 
