Got Your Goat?

As we were sitting New Year's Eve through trailers awaiting the beginning of the movie "American Hustle,"  the screen had posted numerous times to quiet cell phones and not text due to the distracting light...but at least 8 people's phones were still lighting up different sections around the theater and you know what? If I wanted lights on in what is supposed to be a darkened theater, I would just stay home in the End of the Rainbow Valley and watch a Netflix movie with Natureman so it really got my goat... 

Now I don't use that phrase without a bit of strategic planning. After yesterday's blog entry regarding Mancha's romantic getaway, friend Colleen wanted to know how the phrase 'got your goat' originated. My immediate thought was that I know it's not easy to catch a goat when you want to... and that can be aggravating. 

Once I did a little Googling though I learned that the idiom in 
the 1700's could have a tie to horse racing as goats used to be kept as 'companions' to calm the jittery horses before a horse race. Many a goat were stolen and the goat's absence would affect the race's outcome.

'Got your goat' may have had just an American beginning in the early 1900's deriving from a co mingling of accents of the word goad/ irritating.

But its idiom roots could also be French as in "prendre la chevre," (to take the goat) as a stolen goat was depriving a peasant family of their source of income/sustenance as the milk/ meat would be gone. 

 Urban Dictionary's definition:
 "To annoy you to the point of getting pissed. 

The Sub Definition: Goat: The goat is a metaphor for your state of peacefulness. When your goat is with you, you are calm and collected. When your goat is stolen, you become angry and upset. 

Notes: Getting someone's goat can not be a quick process and must be done by not being directly mean. The best way to get someone's goat is by means of clever annoyance."

I know those movie goers just didn't want to look up and see those messages to turn off their phones, right? Clever annoyance? Nah, just clueless...