Get Someone's Goat
Here is the problem: the next tribe (and your tribe are stealing goats from each other). How would you handle this situation? Would you:
- Put up large fences to stop people.
- Talk to the other group and make peace.
- Cut the head and hooves (feet) off of a goat and turn it into a sport.
If you chose C, you might think like a Turkic person. I can’t find direct evidence of this, but it seems that the sport of Buzkashi came about this way. Whatever the case, the sport has existed since at least the 10th century. In this sport, players ride horses. They have to pick up a dead goat and put it in a large bowl without getting caught. If you want to see this sport in action, I will leave a video link at the end of this entry.
To get someone’s goat means to upset or irritate them. The phrase may have originated in a similar way to the game of Buzkashi, with the stealing of goats. Goats are often kept with racehorses to keep them calm before a big race. Competitors would steal the goat from their rival and the horse would get nervous. They thought that the horse would not perform as well under those conditions.
Example: I hate it when he does that. It really gets my goat.
I like this etymology, but it seems unlikely to be true. By the time it appears in literature (1905), it already has its idiomatic meaning. Where do you think this phrase comes from?
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Reference:
https://www.britannica.com/sports/buzkashi
https://www.michiganradio.org/post/dont-let-idiom-get-your-goat
US gov, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7057524