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Flogging a dead horse (alternatively beating a dead horse, or beating a dead dog in some parts of the Anglophone world) is an idiom that means a particular request or line of conversation is already foreclosed or otherwise resolved, and any attempt to continue it is futile; or that to continue in any endeavour (physical, mental, etc.) is a waste of time as the outcome is already decided. According to the ''Oxford English Dictionary'',〔OED.com, 8 January 2014.〕 the first recorded use of the expression in its modern sense was by the English politician and orator John Bright, referring to the Reform Act of 1867, which called for more democratic representation in Parliament. Trying to rouse Parliament from its apathy on the issue, he said in a speech, would be like trying to flog a dead horse to make it pull a load. The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' cites ''The Globe'', 1872, as the earliest verifiable use of flogging a dead horse, where someone is said to have "rehearsed that (. . ) lively operation known as flogging a dead horse".〔1872 ''The Globe'', 1 Aug 1872.〕 However Jay Dillon〔Jay Dillon Rare Books + Manuscripts (Monmouth Beach, New Jersey), 9 January 2014.〕 has discovered an earlier instance attributed to the same John Bright thirteen years earlier: speaking in Commons 28 March 1859, Lord Elcho (Francis Charteris, 10th Earl of Wemyss) remarked that Bright had not been "satisfied with the results of his winter campaign" and that "a saying was attributed to him () that he () found he was 'flogging a dead horse.'"〔''Hansard's Parliamentary Debates'', 3rd series, vol. 153 (1859), col. 934.〕 ==Earlier meaning== Some scholars claim that the phrase originated in 17th-century slang, where a "dead horse" was work that was paid for in advance, e.g. "His land 'twas sold to pay his debts; All went that way, for a dead horse, as one would say."〔Nicker Nicked in Harl. Misc. (Park) II. 110 (1668)〕 This attribution confuses "flogging a dead horse" with an entirely different phrase: "to work (for) the dead horse". This phrase was slang for "work charged before it is executed". This use of 'dead horse' to refer to pay that was issued before the work was done was an allusion to using one's money to buy a useless thing (metaphorically, "a dead horse"). Most men paid in advance apparently either wasted the money on drink or other such vices, or used it to pay outstanding debts. In his book ''Old England and New Zealand'' published in London in 1879 the author Alfred Simmons gives detailed explanation and background of the "Flogging the Dead Horse" ceremony performed on board ship by a ship's crew at the end of the first month of their voyage (page 113). 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Flogging a dead horse」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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