Why do people say They don’t geehaw to mean “They don’t get along”? Geehaw, occasionally spelled jeehaw, comes from the calls people use to drive a team of animals, such as oxen, mules, horses, or sled dogs, gee being an order to turn right and haw...
The word traces denotes the long, thin leather straps that secure a horse to a wagon. The expression to kick over the traces, meaning “to become unruly,” refers to the action of a horse literally kicking over those straps and getting all tangled up...
