A Horse Apiece

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Rachel from San Francisco.

Hiya, Rachel.

Hello, Rachel.

Hi, Martha and Grant.

Well, what’s up, Rachel?

Well, I have a question for you.

I was born and raised in western North Dakota, and a phrase I often heard while growing up was, it’s a horse apiece, which meant it doesn’t make a difference or it’s the same either way.

A lot of times you would hear it in answer to questions regarding driving directions, like, should I take the highway or should I take the interstate?

So when I went to college in eastern North Dakota, I would sometimes use the phrase, and it was like I was speaking a foreign language.

So I was just wondering where it came from, and is the usage restricted to western North Dakota?

Huh. So the phrase is, it’s a horse apiece, and it sort of means the same thing as six of one, half a dozen of the other?

Exactly. That’s what they would often tell me, all my Minnesota friends, but I’m sort of loathe to take advice from people that think the goose is a great duck.

Well, that’s not quite right, but okay.

So, yeah, so it’s six of one, half a dozen of the other.

This has actually got a pretty tight little story.

This is a newer form of an older expression, which is a horse in the horse, used in almost exactly the same circumstances.

Somebody would say, you know, do you want the apples or do you want the oranges? And you’d say, you know, a horse and a horse. They’re the same thing.

And it comes originally, of course, from horse racing where you might have horses neck and neck coming up to the wire.

So the horse and a horse version of this goes back to the mid-1800s.

And the horse-a-piece version, you know what, Martha, I don’t know of it any newer than, say, the 1980s, but it must be older than that.

It feels older, doesn’t it?

Yeah, I mean, I know that most of the people that used it growing up were much older.

There we go. That’s what I was looking for.

Yeah, Rachel, that’s exactly what I would expect it is.

I would suspect this one goes back at least to the 20s and 30s, if not earlier than that still.

It’s weird that I have never heard of it any earlier than the 80s.

Is it used across the country or is it?

It is. There’s a tiny bit of evidence that says it’s concentrated in Wisconsin and in the surrounding states, but there’s not enough information in order to draw that conclusion conclusively.

So how’s that for waffling and hedging?

I appreciate the information.

Yeah.

So, Rachel, you don’t talk that strangely.

I’ll let all those Minnesota folks know that.

No, I think a horse apiece is fine.

And if I were you, I’d start taking what I call a little of Chamber of Commerce pride in that expression, which is you just tell them that’s the way right-talking folks speak and that they need to catch up, that they’re behind.

Right.

Okay.

Yes.

Well, Rachel, thanks for your call.

Thank you.

All right.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

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