Horses: Nonplussed or Verklempt

Ok, I love words, especially when you can have fun with them. Forgive me in advance for this post’s tangents.

Yesterday, we took a long ride across the Greencastle Bridge and into the next town of North Liberty. I’ve become quite fond of snack breaks and for this eight-mile ride, there was no exception. I knew just the spot – off the path with a nice view and plenty of grass for the horses.
This time, instead of holding onto our mecates, we hobbled them. Both Comet and Pep have been hobbled and know the deal. Pep does almost too well with hobbles. I’ve seen her lope/hop quite well with them. She set to grazing right away and stayed close but mobile. I thought, ‘She’s nonplussed.’ a fun, fancy way of saying unfazed.
Comet, as you mightn’t be able to see from this first image, was unimpressed. She’d grab a mouthful and then stare at us. I could see her fussiness brewing.
I struggled to think of that odd Yiddish word that I’d heard in Saturday Night Live skits years ago…Verklempt.
Mike Myers brought the term to pop culture as Linda Richman on SNL’s Coffee Talk. It means overcome with emotion.
Comet was most definitely feeling verklempt.

And here is what happens when a verklempt horse has no Coffee Talk friends on the couch to help her out of her state. She launched herself. No one paid her any mind. We were nonplussed. Get over it, girl.
She went to grazing but mostly stood and stared, making it clear she was wholly dissatisfied with the arrangement.

When I got home I did some word research. Nonplussed is decidedly not unfazed. In fact, it’s a weird way of saying ‘fazed’ or ‘perturbed.’

Yeah, Comet was those things, too.