A Little Horse with Words

It’s been said ... you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.

Over the years, I’ve been a wanna’ be wrangler and believe me ... the horse won’t budge.

At risk of dating myself, I remember hearing about horse sense from Mom and in a song back in the 60’s. There’s something to be said about horse sense and who has it.

Let’s do what my mother, Permelia Susan, used to do. We’ll join what she called the “look it up club,” and see for ourselves.

According to Webster’s, horse sense is nothing but common sense, which is

1) The unreflective opinions of ordinary men

2) Sound and prudent but often unsophisticated judgment

Like most people, I consider myself ordinary, a common sense sort of guy, however I’m obviously sophisticated.

Let’s try Webster’s again. Hum ... unsophisticated means not changed or corrupted; not worldly wise: lacking social or economic sophistication; simple straight forward (as in approach to a problem).

OK, now that’s clear as mud. If I am unsophisticated, I’m just a country bumpkin. If I’m sophisticated, then I’m corrupt, and a snob? I know I have changed over the years, have traveled a lot, but still look for simple straight forward solutions to problems. My mate tells me I am lacking economic sophistication with our checkbook. Sounds like I want to avoid both and portray myself as falling somewhere in between. Maybe I’m an unsofisticated sofisticate?

So now, what can we make out of all this? It’s simple. Many of our business, social and economic woes are the direct result of so called sophisticates failing to use some common sense. For example, consider companies giving CEO’s pay raises while laying off or asking workers to take cuts in pay and benefits. (Too many chiefs and not enough Indians?)

This reminds me of an unsophisticated horse word: Horse puckey! In other words, we suffer from a bad case of people who are full of nonsense.