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Words and Their Stories -- a program in Special English. Like every
language, American English is full of strange expressions -- phrases that
come from the day-to-day life of the people and develop in their own way.
Today, our expression is "to get one's goat" -- to make one angry.
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The goat is an ancient creature, but has done much for man, providing
milk, meat, and other good and useful things. Still it has been kicked,
beaten, and condemned as a creature of dirt and sin. But it continues to
serve mankind in many useful ways, large and small. One of the small
services the goat has rendered to man is in the way of language. One has
merely to think of some of the pungent, colorful expressions that go with
the word, "goat," to recognize what it has done for the art of expression.
One especially common expression that has developed in America is the
phrase "to get one's goat," meaning to annoy, irritate, upset, or anger
somebody. When you hear someone say, "That really gets my goat," you can
almost feel the heat of anger in the voice, and you know how upset or
offended the person is.
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It is a strange phrase. Efforts to learn how it started have not been
successful. The French have the same expression, and it is said the phrase
was used in France more than 100 years ago. The American version is not
that old. Experts believe that use of the phrase in the United States did
not come from the French expression. If it had, its use would have been
much earlier than 1900. Its first use in America was in 1912 by the
novelist, Jack London, in his book. Smoke Bellow. London tells the
story of two men crossing a bridge made of snow. The bridge seems to be
breaking up. One of the men gets across and shouts back at the other,
"Don't look down! That's what got my goat!"
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One other explanation about how the expression got started is not widely
believed. But it makes an interesting story. It was said that at race
tracks a goat sometimes moved around among the horses. It was thought that
the goat would quiet and calm down the nervous race horses. And if a
person stole someone else's goat, the other horses might become nervous.
His own horse, therefore, might have a better chance to win. So getting
the other man's goat would surely be considered an unfriendly act and
arouse his anger.
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