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

Posted by Alex in Animal, Book & Lit on April 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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12 comments to "Word of the Day: Feague and What It Has Got to Do with a Horse's Butt"

  1. Christophe
    April 7th, 2008 at 10:49 pm

    I prefer my horse with Armagnac and cream sauce :p

  2. su.wei
    April 8th, 2008 at 2:36 am

    i think if someone put ginger up my but i'd run too...

  3. Retrokatze
    April 8th, 2008 at 7:51 am

    And now look up figging... o_O

  4. xander
    April 8th, 2008 at 8:00 am

    That's feaguing neat! I tried it on my dog--apparently most foods will do the trick.

  5. jen
    April 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.

  6. cherishimo
    April 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.

  7. Nicole
    April 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?

  8. Tempscire
    April 8th, 2008 at 2:06 pm

    Ha. I already knew that thanks to Terry Pratchett. :)

  9. CheeseDuck
    April 8th, 2008 at 2:44 pm

    What would Googling something be according to this?

  10. Thomas
    April 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.

  11. empty-minded
    April 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.

  12. raincoaster
    April 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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