| gen. |
off your perch high horse!; come off your high horse!; come off your perch!; Get off your moral high horse! (тж. Get off your high horse!; e.g.: Get (down) off your (moral) high horse and apologize!; Definition: In medieval times, knights (nobility) rode horses while peasants (commoners) did not. So the knights could literally look down upon the common folk, considering them to be inferior and therefore beneath their notice. The sentiment survives today in the expression "on a high horse", meaning those who think they're better than the people around them: more devout or pious, less likely to be dishonest, always in the right (or at least, in the wrong far less often). The reality is that very few people are that saintly; and the ones that are usually have a healthy dose of humility to keep them grounded. So, to tell someone to get off their moral high horse is a not-so-polite way of reminding them that they're really no better than the rest of us, no matter how much they might want to believe otherwise Taras) |
