Horse

choi

People and horses l A Partner Like No Other; How an animal shaped human history. Economist, May 13, 2017
http://www.economist.com/news/bo ... n-conquer-world-how
(book review on two books: Susanna Forrest, The Age of the Horse; An equine journey through human history. Atlantic Monthly Press, 2017; Ulrich Raulff, Farewell to the Horse; The final century of our relationship. Allen Lane, 2017)

Note:
(a) "SIX THOUSAND years ago wild horses roamed the plains and steppes of the world [not in America continent, where they had become extinct]. * * * Then, in the Copper Age, the Botai people * * * domesticate[d] them. * * * Unusually, unlike almost all mammals other than humans, they sweat to cool themselves, which means they can work harder and run faster, for a long time."
(i) Ernest Frank Bailey and Samantha A Brooks, Horse Genetics. 2nd ed. Wallingford, Oxfordshire: CABI, 2013, at page 3.
https://books.google.com/books/a ... tml?id=CDv7AgAAQBAJ

Click the book cover to read.
(ii) Botai culture
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botai_culture
(c 3700–3100 BC; was named after the settlement of [ancient] Botai [people] in[present-day] Kazakhstan; pottery [reported in Outram AK et al, The Earliest Horse Harnessing and Milking. Science, 323: 1332–1335 (2009)])
This last attribute was central to the horse’s usefulness. Over the millennia, people have made full use of this equine companion, as two superb new books relate. “The Age of the Horse” by Susanna Forrest and “Farewell to the Horse” by Ulrich Raulff pay homage to the role of the horse in forging history—and more. Neither book purports to be a comprehensive equi-story; instead, by arranging their narratives thematically rather than chronologically, both authors have granted themselves the freedom to range as widely as the ancient wild horses, the Takhi and the Tarpan, once did, grazing on a pasture rich in anecdote, allegory and pathos as well as in

(b) "The bidet of French-bathroom fame was named after the 19th-century Parisian scrub horse (you straddle both). In the midst of the second world war, the Heck brothers, whipped on by Hermann Göring, traversed Europe to capture some of the last remaining wild ponies, from which they attempted to breed a genetically pure race to populate the parks of Berlin."
(i)
(A) bidet
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bidet
(pronunciation, etymology)
(B) bidet
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bidet
(section 7 Etymology)
(ii)
(A) an example of "scrub horse" (one Web entry used this term for pony, but it is not pony other than its "compact" size):

Robert W Furnas, Annual Report for the year of 1895. Nebraska State Board of Agriculture, Lincoln, Neb: Jacob North & Co, 1896, at page 216
https://books.google.com/books?i ... p;lpg=PA216&dq="scrub+horse"+compact&source=bl&ots=0pQ1zGMYDg&sig=dGDaXBg5O_Xga3ngLmdpxPNn0iQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi85oXYkK_UAhUE5oMKHdG8BVkQ6AEIIjAA#v=onepage&q=%22scrub%20horse%22%20compact&f=false
("The scrub horse will produce the scrub horse, and the scrub farmer will have the scrub stock that will lose him money, while th eprogressive farmer will produce the prize winners")
(B) definition:
* scrub (noun, often attributive)
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/scrub
* scrub (noun): "2.1 North American  denoting an animal of inferior breed or physique <a scrub bull>"
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/scrub
(iii) Heck horse
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heck_horse

choi

(c) "Victorian London rang with the language of horsemanship: the clopping hooves of cabbies, vanners, sweepers, vestry horses, costers’ ponies, brewery Shires, bussers, growlers and trammers as well as the riding horses of the gentry. By 1901, when there were more horses in towns than in the country, working horses consumed almost exactly the same amount of grain and hay as was produced by British farmers."
(i) vestry horse:
(A) "The Vestry is the elected governing body of the parish."

The word remains in use in the present days.
(B) Chapter 5 The Vestry Horse. In WJ Gordon, The Horse World of London. Religious Tract Society (RTS), 1893, at page 75
http://www.victorianlondon.org/publications6/horse-05.htm
("The thirteen hundred thousand cart-loads of refuse removed from London in a year* [*see How London Lives, in The Leisure Hour Library, published at 56 Paternoster Row] require a small horde of about 1,500 horses to deal with them, and of these more than half now belong to the vestries and district Boards of Works. What may be called the 'municipal horse' is a really good cart-horse. * * * The average working life in the vestry service is eight years")
(C) Hannah Velten, Beastly London; A history of animals in the city. London: Reaktion Books, 2013, at page 56
https://books.google.com/books?i ... 20horse&f=false
("Several classes of heavy horse were described in The Horse-world of London: the coal horse, the vestry horse (which carried rubbish) and the brewery horse. * * * The life of the vestry horse was similar to the coal horse's in that it had to move extremely heavy loads, but had plenty of time to rest while its cart was being loaded. The 1,500 vestry horses moved 1/3 million cartloads refuse from London streets during the year; two or three loads of rubbish each day, taking seven hours, with each load averaging 2.5 tons")
(ii)
(A) coster (n): "short for costermonger"
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/coster
(B) costermonger (n; etymology: (denoting an apple seller): from Costard + -monger): "British dated  a person who sells goods, especially fruit and vegetables, from a handcart in the street"
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/costermonger

* costard (n; ME [Middle English], ribbed apple [from its appearance] from Old French coste, a rib + -ard, -ard): "a variety of large apple, native to England" (used in cooking)
Webster's New World College Dictionary. 5th ed. Houghton Mifflin Harcour, 2014.
http://www.yourdictionary.com/costard#SiL1z4zy7yvz2Jvw.99"
(iii)
(A) growler (n): "3 historical  a four-wheeled hansom cab"
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/growler

* Hansom cab
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hansom_cab
(B) For growler, see hackney carriage
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackney_carriage
("The Clarence or growler was a type of four-wheel, enclosed carriage drawn by two horses[8] used as a hackney carriage, that is, as a vehicle for hire with a coachman. It is distinguished from a cab, hansom cab or cabriolet, in that those had only two wheels. It is distinguished from most coaches by being of slightly smaller size, nominally holding four passengers,[9] and being much less ostentatious")

There is also a sketch of growler, a word that appears in the caption.

choi

(d) "But to call it [Mr Raulff's book] a history underplays its scope. Mr Raulff gallops through time and space, art criticism, philosophy and economics, plaiting in tales of Kafka, Tolstoy and Comanche, the hard-drinking stallion who was the only non-Indian survivor of the Battle of Little Bighorn. His is a category-defying, often dizzying, piece of writing"
(i)
(A) underplay (vt): "to act or present (a role, a scene, etc) with restraint : PLAY DOWN"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/underplay
(B) underplay (vt): "represent (something) as being less important than it really is <I do not wish to underplay the tragedies that have occurred>"
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/underplay
(ii) plait (vt): "to interweave the strands or locks of : BRAID"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/plait

(e) "(Although, as Ms Forrest points out, in 2011 60% of all horses and 95% of donkeys were working in the developing world, with the money generated for each animal being sufficient to support a family of up to 20.) In the developed world they have been replaced with machines."