又中又英 | Horses for courses | 褚簡寧

　　Many Hong Kong people eat, sleep, and breathe horse racing. Some even spend much of their waking hours looking at the racing pages of newspapers to compare the horses, how they perform in different types of weather, and suggestions by newspaper racing experts. If you eat, sleep, and breathe something, it means you are extremely interested or passionate about it. Many people eat, sleep, and breathe sports. Your waking hours refer to the time when you are not sleeping. The waking hours of most people are during the day except for those on overnight duty who sleep during the day.

　　Almost 100,000 people packed the Sha Tin Racecourse last Thursday for the first racing day of the Year of the Horse hoping for good luck and prosperity. I know very little about horse racing. Will this Year of the Horse make even more people eat, sleep, and breathe horse racing in the hope that the Horse Year will make them win? I don't know, but the Year of the Horse reminded me of the idiom horses for courses. The word "courses" has several meanings, but in the idiom horses for courses it means the condition of a particular racecourse a horse runs on.

　　The original meaning of the idiom is that a racehorse performs best on a racecourse that it is specifically suited for. But the idiom now also means it is important to choose suitable people for a particular activity or job because everyone has different skills. It is not horses for courses to choose a journalist like me to ride racehorses! I would instantly fall off!

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　　許多香港人全心投入（eat, sleep, and breathe）賽馬之中，有些人甚至連醒着的時間（waking hours）都多半用來看報章馬經，去比較不同的馬匹，牠們在各種天氣下的表現，閱讀報章專業馬評人的建議。若你eat, sleep, and breathe something，意即你對某事物非常熱衷，像吃飯、睡覺、呼吸那樣重要。許多人對體育相當癡迷（eat, sleep, and breathe sports）。你的waking hours就是你睡眠以外的時間，大部分人的waking hours都是日間，除了要通宵工作的人，需要在白天睡覺。

　　上星期四，差不多有十萬人擠滿了沙田馬場，希望在馬年首個賽馬日迎來好運又發財。我對賽馬所知不多。這個馬年，不知會否令更多人醉心於（eat, sleep, and breathe）賽馬中，期望馬年令他們贏大錢？我不知道。不過馬年讓我想到了成語horses for courses。Courses有不同的意思，但在成語horses for courses中，是指給馬匹賽跑的特定賽道的狀況。

　　這個成語的原意是馬匹在適合牠的賽道上，才能有最優秀的表現。然而，這個成語現在也用來說要知人善任，讓合適的人去做合適的活動或工作，方能發揮所長，因為每個人有不同的技能。選一個像我這樣的新聞工作者去賽馬，就不是horses for courses了！我會馬上墮馬！

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Michael Chugani褚簡寧
中譯：七刻