While checking for Tinman's "bantam cock" in Captain Grose's 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, my eye fell on another term at that part of the alphabet. Take that term to one-look and you find it defined in only one one-look source, and that definition is very different.

Grose: Banks's horse: A horse famous for playing tricks, the property of one Banks. It is mentioned in Sir Walter Raleigh's Hist. of the World, p. 178; also by Sir Kenelm Digby and Ben Jonson.

Brewer, Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 1898. Banks’s Horse: A learned horse, called Marocco, belonging to one Banks, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. It is said that his shoes were of silver. One of his exploits was "the ascent of St. Paul’s steeple."

This sounds interesting. Does anyone have familiarity or further information?

I haven't heard the phrase, but you piqued my interest. From the Web, most of the Google sites refer to the definition where the horse is "playing tricks," from the 1811 Dictionary of the Vulger Tongue. The "learned horse" definition from the Brewer's Dictionary apparently came later because this dictionary was first published in 1870. Has anyone heard the phrase? How would it be used? I am sure that Richard likes seeing the "s's"!

Tinman has a bantam cock?

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Originally posted by Caterwauller:
Tinman has a bantam cock?

Have you been peeking, again, CW?

Tinman

I have heard of Banks's horse from somewhere, but I can't remember where. So far as I can remember it was a horse that had been taught to do tricks, such as tapping out with his hoof the number of fingers held up by his owner. Hence "learned". I suspect some of the horses and other animals in twentieth century circuses were taught better tricks, but in its day it was a marvel.

Banks horse reminds me of "shanks mare." You've heard that one, haven't you?

Tinman, it only took you a year to answer CW. Take your time next time.

Ma'am, it took him a year to answer he publicly. Lord knows what they've been discussing privately!

LOL - goodness! I turn my back for but a moment, and here you all are, besmirching my good (ahem!) reputation! I was told in PM to come look for this . . . or it would have been another year before I'd noticed and responded again. I'm not so talented as Banks's horse, of course.

quote:

Have you been peeking, again, CW?

Every chance I get, Tinny. What else are we old, married women to do for kicks?

Was a pre-communist Chinese voyeur a Peking Tom?