Idiomatic Expressions that My Canadian Coworker Doesn't Know, Installment XXVII

[mcroft]

Me, decribing a TV remote that the ferrets used to like to chew on and take under the sofa.

It was rode hard and put up wet.

It's my contention that the metaphor is graphic and clear to most listeners on first hearing.

Comments

[djinnthespazz.livejournal.com]

Horses. They founder if you do that. Very bad.

[mcroft.livejournal.com]

Yep! While I knew it was equine, I didn't know the exact nature of the badness. In fact, I still don't, since I think of 'founder' as a bad thing that happens to ships...

Nevertheless I expect most listeners to realize that "...and that's a bad thing" even if it's the first time they've heard it.

[djinnthespazz.livejournal.com]

Something about their feet... I've never really learned the details.

[drelmo.livejournal.com]

I was under the impression it referred to saddles and other riding gear, not the horse itself. It seems an implausible expression to "put up" a horse, whereas riding gear is slung over the stall wall.

Sweaty leather riding gear is going to rot quickly if it's not cleaned up.

Regardless, I don't think the idiom is going to be understandable unless the listener can connect it to the equestrian. If the listener's leisure activity tends towards skiing, snowmobiling, skidooing, biking, he's not going to connect being rode hard and wet to automatically being bad. In context, the expression is clearly negative, but the connotations will escape him.

IMO.

[djinnthespazz.livejournal.com]

You put a horse up in a stall.

Ever hear the expression 'let us put you up for the night?'
It's archaic, I'll grant that.

But you are right about the tack. Salt is hell on leather.