Word of the Day: Feague and What It Has Got to Do with a Horse’s Butt

By Alex in Animals & Pets, Book & Literature on Apr 7, 2008 at 8:49 pm

What I like about Scribal Terror blog is how Gail Hapke throws in a neat vocab lesson every now and then. Take this post on "feague", which means:

“to put ginger up a horse’s fundament, or a live eel, to make him lively and carry his tail well; it is said, a forfeit is incurred by any horse-dealer’s servant, who shall shew a horse without first feaguing him. Feague is used, figuratively, for encouraging or spiriting one up”.

(What’s a fundament? The Free Dictionary to the rescue)

Link

(Illustration: AWhitehorse, who obviouly doesn’t approve of the whole ginger thingy)

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Christophe
Apr 7th, 2008 at 10:49 pm
I prefer my horse with Armagnac and cream sauce :p
su.wei
Apr 8th, 2008 at 2:36 am
i think if someone put ginger up my but i’d run too…
Retrokatze
Apr 8th, 2008 at 7:51 am
And now look up figging… o_O
xander
Apr 8th, 2008 at 8:00 am
That’s feaguing neat! I tried it on my dog–apparently most foods will do the trick.
jen
Apr 8th, 2008 at 8:30 am
Unfortunately it’s still relatively common in a certainly type of breed classes at shows…they like their horses to look “lively”, and ginger up the butt certainly gets their tails up.
cherishimo
Apr 8th, 2008 at 9:21 am
I accidentally got a bit of ginger in my eye once. That’ll make you lively.

And temporarily blind.
Nicole
Apr 8th, 2008 at 9:26 am
Yup, it’s true. This has long been a problem in the Arabian horse show world. Rules strictly prohibit “gingering,” but it still happens. After all, how are you going to determine whether a horse’s tail carriage is natural or artificial – taste test?
Tempscire
Apr 8th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
Ha. I already knew that thanks to Terry Pratchett.
CheeseDuck
Apr 8th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
What would Googling something be according to this?
Thomas
Apr 8th, 2008 at 4:28 pm
Hmm… I’ve got some kittens to get rid of, I wonder if that’ll help get them into new homes.
empty-minded
Apr 8th, 2008 at 7:20 pm
I bet Gilligan had something to do with Ginger winding up in a horse’s fundament. And although the horse said it was a memorable experience, it was Mary Ann who truly benefited as she received a lot more attention from the guys afterwards.
raincoaster
Apr 12th, 2008 at 8:36 pm
The American Saddlebred Association once recommended their judges sniff under the horses’ tails to detect ginger. Needless to say, this was very unpopular with the judges.

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