Cansel22 (asker) Jun 9, 2014:

@B D Finch Ok

Yorkshireman Jun 8, 2014:

Interesting Blog http://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2008/11/horsing-around.htm...

"The Oxford English Dictionary, which leans toward “neck and crop” as the probable source of “come a cropper,” cites a 1791 poem with these lines: “The startish beast took fright, and flop / The mad-brain’d rider tumbled, neck and crop!”

The word sleuth Michael Quinion notes that the “crop” in “neck and crop” might refer to the horse’s other end (its rump). On his website World Wide Words, he writes:

“It could be that crop is a variant of croup, suggesting that a horse that fell neck and crop collapsed all of a heap, with both head and backside hitting the ground together. Or perhaps crop had its then normal meaning, so the expression was an intensified version of neck, perhaps linked to an older expression neck and heels that’s similar to head over heels.”

Also here: http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/come-a-cropper.html

'Neck and crop' and 'head over heels' probably both derive from the 16th century term 'neck and heels', which had the same meaning. 'Come a cropper' is just a colloquial way of describing a 'neck and crop' fall. The phrase is first cited in Robert S. Surtees' Ask Mamma, 1858:

B D Finch Jun 8, 2014:

@Asker May I suggest that you amend the header term in the KudoZ Glossary to read "hurled neck and crop over". "Hurled neck" makes no sense on its own and will not be useful to KOG users.

Yorkshireman Jun 7, 2014:

Maugham quote/unceremoniously A way of saying threw her out of the house with no more ado - a negative situation, far removed from the joyous amazement experienced by the bridegroom to be. He was clearly not expecting acceptance and was as overjoyed as the hermit would have been about suddenly being transported to paradise. The transformation was anything but unceremonious - despite the MW definition (which means as if chucked/slung over the gate like a sack of potatoes).