Subtitles section Play video Print subtitles 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.
A2 US charley horse muscle cramp charlie noun phrase English Tutor Nick P Noun Phrase (141) Charley Horse 5 0 anitawu12 posted on 2020/01/06 More Share Save Report Video vocabulary