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An old cowboy term for a nervous horse who's working his bit is: fonching. The horse is fonching at the bit. It can also mean the horse is throwing his head, jittering or any other nervous motion.
I have suspected for a long time the term may have come from a possible cavalry word, possibly French. I've heard the term applied to over-eager dogs and people, but less commonly as horses.
There's a lot of obscure cowboy words and terminology.
I took a guess at the spelling; it could be spelled "faunching", but I've never seen the word in print.
Words change pronunciation, too. Cowboys never call their leather leggings "chaps" with a hard ch sound.
That's a word for an English fellow. They pronounce it with an sh sound; shaps.
The word itself derives from chapaderos, similar leggings Mexican cowboys wear, and that word has the hard ch sound. How did it change? Who knows?
I did a simple search by putting "faunching at the bit" (apparently that's the correct spelling, by the way) in the search bar and got several hits. One of them is https://www.waywordradio.org/faunching-at-the-bit/ According to that link, "faunching" implies a bit more desperation relative to "champing". There's also one from the Urban Dictionary but I didn't look at -- was afraid what I'd find.
Never knew that about "shaps". That'll probalby stick in my mind forever now.
Speaking of cowboy words; I've come across the phrase "far out" twice in books written in the 1920s--I think one book was by O.Henry. Each time, it was used by a cowboy to mean "really quite exceptionally good."
Speaking of cowboy words; I've come across the phrase "far out" twice in books written in the 1920s--I think one book was by O.Henry. Each time, it was used by a cowboy to mean "really quite exceptionally good."
There's a lot of obscure cowboy words and terminology.
I took a guess at the spelling; it could be spelled "faunching", but I've never seen the word in print.
Words change pronunciation, too. Cowboys never call their leather leggings "chaps" with a hard ch sound.
That's a word for an English fellow. They pronounce it with an sh sound; shaps.
The word itself derives from chapaderos, similar leggings Mexican cowboys wear, and that word has the hard ch sound. How did it change? Who knows?
I did a simple search by putting "faunching at the bit" (apparently that's the correct spelling, by the way) in the search bar and got several hits. One of them is https://www.waywordradio.org/faunching-at-the-bit/ According to that link, "faunching" implies a bit more desperation relative to "champing". There's also one from the Urban Dictionary but I didn't look at -- was afraid what I'd find.
Never knew that about "shaps". That'll probalby stick in my mind forever now.
That's a fine definition of the word!
Horses are like people; their personalities differ. One horse may become excited and may champ at the bit for a few moments, while another can be tossing its head constantly and working itself into a lather all day long.
Faunching implies one of those energetic nervous horses to me. They often have impatient natures. Some cowboys prefer them, as they are kind of like riding in a sports car.
- I have neither the time nor the crayons to explain it to you
Never heard this before. I love it!
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