More Burning Goats
As many of you may know, I am fascinated with the Christmas tradition in the town of Galve, Sweden in which they build a giant statue of a goat. What could bring more yule cheer than a goat? Perhaps a Llama, but not much else. Anyway, there is another tradition in which some scoundrels try to sneak in and burn this goat up without being caught. This year was a momentous year in the history of this town in that it was the first in many years where the goat did not get burned down. Yea Goat!
This all flooded back into my mind when my I was speaking with my business partner about an issue that really was bothering him. As he was describing his frustration, he said to me:
“This whole thing really burns my goat.”
Initially, the phrase passed by me without much of a thought, but my fascination with goats must have gotten the best of me, because I stopped and thought about what he said.
“It burns your goat?” I asked.
He got a little flustered and told me that his grandmother used to use this metaphor often. I suspect it is a mixed metaphor between the sayings “it gets my goat” and “it burns me up.” But the image of someone going and burning up his goat was funny to me.
The only thing that would have made it better would have been for him to use the term “literally” with it, as in “This whole thing literally burns my goat.” People often use the word literally as if it means “a whole lot. It does not mean that, but instead means that what you are saying is not a metaphor, but to be taken literally - as is said. This is funny to think about when people say things like:
“I was literally sweating bullets.” Really? I have never heard of such a medical condition. What caliber are your sweat glands?
Or,
“It was literally raining cats and dogs.” Yikes! That would be a mess. You may go outside and step in a poodle. (Sorry about that one).
So what about this goat? Was it badly burned? Did they have to send it to the burn unit? My nurse subsequent sent me a note explaining the origin of the expression “it gets my goat”:
A 20th century Americanism said to have originated in the practice of stabling a goat as a soothing mascot with a highly-strung thoroughbred racehorse. The horse could be made fractious and prevented from winning it its goat was taken away.
So there you have the soothing nature of goats once again confirmed. I wonder if this may be a new approach to ADHD. Children with goats are well known to be high achievers, so perhaps instead of stimulant medicines, we can prescribe a goat. I think I feel a meta-analysis coming on.
Unfortunately, I don’t have time for that kind of research. To do so, I would have to literally burn the candle at both ends, and would literally end up fit to be tied.
June 29th, 2007 at 1:14 pm
Nothing like a good laugh to start off my morning.
When I was a child, a neighbour had goats (only females for milk) and I loved to spend time with them. They were lovely gentle animals really, with lovely eyes and I learned to milk a goat, literally.
regards
jmb
June 29th, 2007 at 1:26 pm
My neighbors had goats too (we had a collection of less noble animals - the common pig, cow, and barn cat). But those goats loved to head butt us in any soft body part that was presented to them. Not so sure that they’re “gentle animals,” jmb, but maybe the older female goats are less troublesome than the male kids. Either way, I can see why children with goats become high achievers - figuring out how to be friendly with goats, without getting bruised, can be tricky business - and could prepare one nicely for a life in academic medicine, for example.
June 29th, 2007 at 3:17 pm
http://literally.barelyfitz.com/
Enjoy!
It is literally difficult to come up with an actual sentence that appropriately uses the term literally. Here is one that I thought of however:
I literally bought the farm. It is appropriate to say this if one has literally purchased a farm but not if one is dead. Can you think of any others?
June 29th, 2007 at 5:13 pm
{in best Tommy Chong voice}
Oh wow, man. I swear I just saw a poodle that like… looked like a cat.
Far out, man.
It was sooo cool I like… literally had a cow, ya know?
June 29th, 2007 at 8:35 pm
Yes, but one can only say that he has “bought the farm” if he has literally “kicked the bucket;”although one would not want to kick the bucket from which the goat is eating since it could disturb his horse making her fractious and prevent her from winning her race!
June 30th, 2007 at 5:43 am
For an actor in traction, “I literally broke a leg.”
June 30th, 2007 at 10:28 am
Thanks for the link, Clark. I literally laughed out loud.
Certainly there are some circumstances where it can be used: “I was literally up all night.” But the majority of times it is used are done incorrectly and generally make a humorous sentence if taken literally.
I was not aware there is so much of shared love for goats. That literally warms my heart.
June 30th, 2007 at 10:29 am
Did you notice that the poodle in the picture is actually a cat? I couldn’t figure it out, but it was worth putting in there.
June 30th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
Yes. I tried to leave a comment about the cat / poodle yesterday, but it didn’t post for some reason. Very strange picture.
June 30th, 2007 at 1:36 pm
Not that anything strange ever happens around this blog.
June 30th, 2007 at 1:43 pm
You were tagged as spam. I have no idea why. I literally burns me up.
July 1st, 2007 at 8:21 pm
quick hold on I’ll grab my fireguy, he’ll know what to do. :),
July 10th, 2007 at 11:43 pm
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