The cart or the horse的意思_其他_趣味英语-查字典英语网

The cart or the horse的意思

My comments:

The cart and horse refers to the age-old proverb “don’t put the cart before the horse”, that is, don’t mistake a cause as an effect, or vice versa.

In other words, don’t reverse the accepted order of things – and the accepted order of things is: the horse pulls the cart, not the other way around. If you ask the cart to pull the horse, it’ll be the same as asking a dog’s tail to “wag the dog”, another term I’ve written about in this column.

Anyways, In the passage above, by asking “which is the cart, and which is the horse?”, the author merely wonders whether lack of trust in government (as evidenced by low presidential ratings) leads to greater degrees of lawlessness (or specifically more murders) or whether it is the other way around. Or, as the authors wants to know, is there another horse (another unexamined factor) somewhere?

Well, it’s hard to say, as the author concedes, but that’s neither here nor there, as America’s murderous history is not of our concern here. Of our concern here is the mere proverb “putting the cart over the horse”, and this proverb “has been used since antiquity but was first recorded in English in 1520”, according to American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms.

Here are two recent media examples:

1. Putting the cart before the horse:

Monday was a volatile day in the global financial markets. With the Nikkei down 5% and European bourses down 2% in overnight trading, we should understand that more volatility awaits us in the coming days and weeks.