By Andy Fore
Every now and then I will utter a saying that I grew hearing or using that makes my assistants wonder.
Today I happened to use the saying If wishes were horses, beggars would ride in reference to one of my assistants wish that the timesheet process here was all done electronically instead of the paper system that we have.
She wondered where I get these things from. I thought it was a pretty common saying, but I had never actually investigated where it originated, so I went googling.
The first reference I found was from Bartleby.com [1] which listed the meaning behind the saying according to the New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy [2] as:
If wishing could make things happen, then even the most destitute people would have everything they wanted.
While this was nice, I already knew what it meant, so I went googling some more for the origin of the phrase. It turns out that it is a line from a Mother Goose nursery rhyme, entitled If Wishes Were Horses:
If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. If turnips were watches, I would wear one by my side. And if “ifs” and “ands” Were pots and pans,
There’d be no work for tinkers!
Ref: apples4theteacher.com [3]