get my goat or goad

Add your voice! Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.By teasing me about that article I wrote, he's trying to get my goat, but I won't let him What about our rogue commentator and the original assertion that the expression has to do with horse racing?

William Connolly of the American Copy Editors society suggests a slang interpretation for the phrase: "According to Eric Partridge ("A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English")​, the expression "to get someone's goat," meaning to annoy him, may derive from the French  prendre la chevre, to take the milch-goat, which was often a poor person's only source of milk. (informal) To annoy or infuriate someone. "The urban legend that the expression somehow relates to horse racing is just that," says Machan, "a legend showing what linguists call folk etymology. "Of course, language is an ever-changing entity, so who's to say? If the expression does in fact derive from some connection with the animal–and not from some forgotten slang meaning for the word The wild playful way goats jump about with sudden leaps and turns gives us the words The expression “to get one’s goat” could have something to do with comparing the struggle to control turbulent emotions to the difficulty of trying to catch a goat. “Gets my goad” by itself returns more than 200 raw hits, so all the permutations (get/got/getting your/his/hers/etc.) People believed that placing a goat in a horse’s stall the night before a race would calm the horse. Speakers who replace In my youth (somewhere in the 1950s – 60s in south-eastern Australia) we always said something “gets ON my goat”.

[…] Mr. Knott was taken completely by surprise, and it was some moments before he could get his “goat” under control and thank the members of No.

Part of HuffPost Media. That meaning is recorded in the US book Life in Sing Sing , 1904, which goat is given as a slang term for anger. "Confirming that will take some REAL research, but for the moment I stand corrected, though grammar goading commentators with equally inaccurate understandings do still get my goat. Main Entry: 1goad . “Year of the Sheep!” swear the sheep stalwarts; “Year of the Goat!” goad the goat devoted. ©2020 Verizon Media. Goat - sorry, unable to cite a reference unless you want to count my entire life.

All content on this website, including dictionary, thesaurus, literature, geography, and other reference data is for informational purposes only. In this case, "get my goad" brings the expression full-circle. Goat is a see also of goad. 16 ex-President Colbert proceeded to get the goat of President Knott.

Still, the form is a bit odd: why would the irritating thing “get” your goad, instead of “becoming” the goad? ♢ It really gets my goat when people smoke in …

get your goat definition: to make you annoyed or angry: . All rights reserved.Important conversations are happening now. I have found a quotation that bears out this explanation.

But it is also fair to say that being goaded (or prodded) into action can be a bit unpleasant. Thought to have a calming effect on high-strung thoroughbreds, a goat was placed in the horse's stall on the night before the race. It is very fitting that H.L. Like many colorful idioms in the English language, the origins of “get my goat” are murky, difficult to pin down, and actually rather fascinating. I have not heard this expression (except in go and get the switch-in preparation for corporal punishment).

“get it’s goad.” It is very fitting that H.L.