::I did so and the posting is lost in the Horse Latitudes.::
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:)
I took the term from a book by a WWII humorist, H. Allen Smith. I always presumed it was a humor device. Much to my surprise, and for some unknown reason, I looked the term up on Wikipedia only to discover that it is an actual term:
A likely and documented explanation is that the term is derived from the "dead horse" ritual of seamen (see Beating a dead horse). In this practice, the seaman paraded a straw-stuffed effigy of a horse around the deck before throwing it overboard. Seamen were paid partly in advance before a long voyage, and they frequently spent their pay all at once, resulting in a period of time without income...