I heard it straight from the horse's mouth
I heard it from a reliable source
TRANSLATION
from the horse's mouth = aus erster Hand, direkt aus der Quelle
STATISTICS
IN THE PRESS
Videogames will change the future of filmmaking. That's the headline grabbing news STRAIGHT FROM THE HORSE'S MOUTH as über-directors Steven Spielberg and Robert Zemeckis visited the University of Southern California to big up the campus' new videogame development lab.
(BBC News 19th October 2004)
(BBC News 19th October 2004)
Did you
know?
straight from the horse's mouth
Two theories:
(1) In the American wild west, a careful horse buyer would go "straight to the horse's mouth." He would look at the horse's teeth - the longer the tooth, the older the horse, the lower the value of the horse. And nowadays, people of advanced years or experience age are sometimes described as "long of tooth."
(2) During the Napoleonic wars, the British employed prostitutes as spies. Their mission was to seduce French officers and give British intelligence the information they were able to obtain. When intelligence officers reported to their operational superiors, they were frequently asked if the information was authentic. The usual response was "I got it straight from the whore's mouth." Somehow, the pronunciation got changed through the generations and "whore" mutated into "horse."
Note these horsey phrases:
to horse about = herumblödeln, herumalbern
to bet on the wrong horse = auf die falsche Karte setzen
to flog a dead horse = seine Zeit verschwenden, sich vergeblich bemühen
to put the cart before the horse = das Pferd beim Schwanz aufzäumen
to put the saddle on the wrong horse = den Falschen beschuldigen
to shut the stable door when the horse has bolted = den Brunnen zudecken, wenn das Kind ertrunken ist
a dark horse = ein unbeschriebenes Blatt
strong as a horse = baumstark
on one's high horse = auf dem hohen Ross
Don't look a gift horse in the mouth = einem geschenkten Gaul schaut man nicht ins Maul
Two theories:
(1) In the American wild west, a careful horse buyer would go "straight to the horse's mouth." He would look at the horse's teeth - the longer the tooth, the older the horse, the lower the value of the horse. And nowadays, people of advanced years or experience age are sometimes described as "long of tooth."
(2) During the Napoleonic wars, the British employed prostitutes as spies. Their mission was to seduce French officers and give British intelligence the information they were able to obtain. When intelligence officers reported to their operational superiors, they were frequently asked if the information was authentic. The usual response was "I got it straight from the whore's mouth." Somehow, the pronunciation got changed through the generations and "whore" mutated into "horse."
Note these horsey phrases:
to horse about = herumblödeln, herumalbern
to bet on the wrong horse = auf die falsche Karte setzen
to flog a dead horse = seine Zeit verschwenden, sich vergeblich bemühen
to put the cart before the horse = das Pferd beim Schwanz aufzäumen
to put the saddle on the wrong horse = den Falschen beschuldigen
to shut the stable door when the horse has bolted = den Brunnen zudecken, wenn das Kind ertrunken ist
a dark horse = ein unbeschriebenes Blatt
strong as a horse = baumstark
on one's high horse = auf dem hohen Ross
Don't look a gift horse in the mouth = einem geschenkten Gaul schaut man nicht ins Maul
