If an Aussie asks you if you'd like dead horse on that, they aren't offering you a hot dog; they are offering you ketchup. Now this sounds really silly cause it is. It takes a few steps to finally reach "dead horse", so let me walk you through this.
In Australia, ketchup or catsup is called tomato sauce. I know not why, I think it is a British thing. A name as vague as tomato sauce should be reserved for something that is just tomatoes in a sauce form (hey, just like how we use it!), not a very specific sauce of vinegar, tomatoes, sugar, and salt. But that is much more forgivable than dead horse, which does not describe any sauce in any way, tomato or otherwise.
Much British slang (and therefore Aussie slang) involves a rhyming game. I guess it was a way for those cockney bastards to converse, so those on the outside can't figure what is going on. The east end of London was quite crime riddled, so this cryptic speak helped criminals elude capture. As many of you know, Australia was a penal colony, so those east enders who stopped to explain the code (thus getting caught) got deported, taking with them much of this rhyming slang. (this is why Aussies are easier to understand than the cockney bastards who had even more time to develop more stupid slang).
So, in Australia, horse and sauce rhyme somehow (I haven't figured out how yet, but if I press my hands tightly against my cheeks, I suppose it works). Dead horse is funnier than just horse, and there you have it, Ketchup(catsup) = Dead horse.
I don't think Aussies actually say this to each other when they are by themselves. I think this is an example of a nationwide joke on Americans. Australia is the land of bullshit as I shall explain later. An Aussie family, I am sure, just asks to pass the ketchup, but as soon as an American enters the room, after the subdued hushes subside "Hey, toss me up some dead horse, mate!"becomes normal. They don't have me fooled: I can hear the snickers.
9 comments:
I think it's the case of the magical disappearing r. Taking the r out of horse helps it rhyme much better with sauce.
It is then free to attach itself to the end of my name. I wonder if all of the disappeared r's and the spontaneous r's equal out somehow?
Even when we are alone, it is still dead horse, or sauce, but not ketchup.
And if i said pass the 'dog and bone', i would mean????
No, I think they stick an 'r' in sauce, so it sounds like 'source'.
Australians generally say horse as "hoors" and sauce "soors".
So, Aaron..... in your wisdom, and being sarcastic about Aussies, where and how did the YANKS come up with the word CATSUP, or CATCHUP, both of which have NOTHING to do with tomatoes or sauce.
Apparently the name comes from a variety of Malay sauce that was brought back to the states in the 1800's. There were wide varieties of ketchup (or catsup, both trying to approximate the original name) being produced around the country, but the one with the most lasting popularity was tomato ketchup. As the other types of ketchup faded to obscurity, tomato ketchup, standing as the only one that really mattered culturally, was able to drop tomato from the name. Hence: tomatoes, vinegar, salt, and sugar=ketchup. Sorry for any lack of one-liners in this short history of the word ketchup/catsup in America
We can buy both ketchup & tomato sauce & they taste different. Haven't heard the term dead horse in a long time. It was never said in our home. To add to why dead, it's said we wouldn't be eating it if it was alive :).
To continue Aaron's explanation of ketchup name origin:
Oxford Dictionary:
Origin
Late 17th century: apparently from Chinese ( Hokkien dialect) kê-chiap ‘brine of pickled fish or shellfish’
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