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  • Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Noun Phrase 141. The noun phrase today is

  • charlie horse. Okay. Let's take a look at the note here. If someone has a or got a

  • charley horse , he or she got a very painful muscle cramp. It mostly occurs in

  • the thigh or leg. It could occur in a couple of ways. One is from excessive

  • exercise. Like you over exercise, especially if you didn't prepare your

  • body for it , such as jogging or swimming. This is why people will often do warm-up

  • exercises. Because if you don't do warm-up exercises, you increase the

  • chance of possibly getting a charley horse or a very serious muscle cramp.

  • One could also possibly wake up with a charley horse from one's sleep due to a

  • muscle spasm that may be caused by sleeping in an awkward position. All right. Let's

  • continue here. Yeah. The origin of this term dates back to the 1880s. Yeah. I

  • always wondered why do we call a charley horse a charley horse ? It has

  • nothing to do with a horse at all. You know, it's a muscle spasm. Why would ... why

  • would we relate horses to it ? Well here's the possible reasons why. All right. So here

  • we say there are two theories of how it came about and both are related to

  • baseball. Okay. The first story is connected to an actual lame horse. I

  • think and its name was Charlie that used to pull a roller at the White Sox

  • ballpark in Chicago to help do groundskeeping . . Yeah. They don't have

  • horses to that anymore. They have groundskeepers do all of that

  • stuff but probably in the 1880s maybe they had a horse pulling something to

  • actually you know . help well you know, turn over the dirt or something. Okay. And

  • the second story which actually sounds a little bit more likely. The second story

  • gives credit to a pitcher named Charlie Radbourne who had a nickname of old Hoss.

  • Hoss sounds a lot like horse.

  • One day he suffered a serious muscle cramp during a game and had to be

  • removed from the game and maybe maybe that's where it came from. That they

  • started calling it charley horses because the name pitcher's name was Charlie and

  • his nickname was old Hoss which sounds a lot like horse. Okay. All right.

  • Anyway, let's let's look at we have several examples here. Okay. I awoke from

  • my sleep with a painful charley horse. All right That's one way. Or if you don't do

  • some warm-up stretches. Yeah. That's one of the ways that we do it . To try to

  • avoid a charley horse . You know, try to you know , stretch your muscles out.

  • Something like that. Yes. To avoid a charley horse. So if you don't do some

  • long stretches before swimming you may get a charley horse. And the third one

  • here. I tried to bend down and sit in an awkward position and I suddenly got a

  • charley horse. Okay . Anyway, I hope you got it. I hope it is clear. I hope it was informative. Thank

  • you for your time . Bye-bye.

Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Noun Phrase 141. The noun phrase today is

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