 |
Gramps,
I want to ask you a question. Seriously! I'll be expecting a real answer.
Thank you for all that you do for Mormon Town. Thank you so much for doing
this column!! Let me know if you get this and if it's confusing at all.
Here's my question: Why do they
call charlie-horses, charlie-horses? Jason |
Dear
Jason,
In
answer to your question, in the first place "charlie horse" is spelled
"charley horse."
"Charley
horse" is an American expression of uncertain origin. It dates from the
1880s, and may have been originally baseball slang. It refers to a painful
involuntary cramp in an arm or leg muscle, usually that of an athlete, as a
result of a muscular strain or a blow. There are lots of theories about its
origin. There's a persistent story that the original Charley was a lame horse of
that name that pulled the roller at the White Sox ballpark in Chicago near the
end of last century. The American Dialect Society's archives reproduced a story
that was printed in the Washington Post in 1907, long enough after the event
that people were trying to explain something already mysterious. This piece said
it referred to the pitcher Charley Radbourne, nicknamed Old Hoss, who suffered
this problem during a game in the 1880s; the condition was then named by putting
together his first name and the second half of his nickname. The first recorded
use, again from the ADS archives, is from the Sporting Life of 1886; that and
other citations suggest it was coined not long before.
Gramps