Kentucky Derby, baseball and sports idioms

The Kentucky Derby takes place at the race track in Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky in the USA. This race is one of the most famous in the country although it is not the largest in prize money (larger than the Kentucky Derby in prize money is the Breeder's Cup). Along with Epsom Derby which takes place in England, the Kentucky Derby is included in the Triple Crown. A short videotape take from Churchill Down, with commentary by the Peace Corps volunteers, familiarized the conversationalists at the Window of America with one of the most interesting types of sport - racing.

After viewing the captivating two minute race, the club participants began to recall idioms in which the word "horse" is used. Do you know where the phrase "high on a horse" came from? Apparently the feudals, who usually fought on horseback, were disrespectful to the simple folk and servants, who did not own horses. English language writers widely used idiomatic phrases in their works. Also mentioned were "wastefulness", "dark horse", "easier on the turn", "salty" (seaman's phrase) and other phrases which were supposed to be correctly explained, of course, with wide use of dictionaries.

The second part of the meeting was devoted to baseball - the traditional American spectator sport. Now 120 countries play baseball. But if you have never played, you will find it difficult to acquire the great number of idioms which have become the sport's terms: pitcher, inning, catcher, strike and so on. It was very interesting but truthfully our guests were already captivated by baseball terminology just like the volunteers. Nonetheless, the main goal of the meeting was achieved - our locals found out from the source about the pseudoamerican phenomena - baseball.