meaning - What does this mean: 'Chuck Norris can lead a horse to water AND make it drink'? Why is it funny?



Chuck Norris can lead a horse to water and make it drink.



I read this on http://chucknorrisfacts.com. What I think this sentence means, is: Chuck Norris can take his horse to where the water is and then his horse will drink the water. So, what is funny about this? Isn't it something pretty normal?



Answer



"You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink" is an English proverb. If you want the horse to drink, the most you can do is lead it to water; after that, the horse drinks only if it wants to. More generally, the proverb is used in the senses of "there's only so much you can do" or "people will do what they want" or "you can't help people who don't want to be helped". This proverb is one of the oldest in English, having been recorded in Old English Homilies, 1175:



Hwa is thet mei thet hors wettrien the him self nule drinken
[who can give water to the horse that will not drink of its own accord?]



So "Chuck Norris can lead a horse to water AND make it drink" simply reverses the proverb: Chuck Norris can do something which the proverb says is impossible. (The humour is partly from the appropriation of a commonplace proverb for Chuck Norris purposes.) Something similar would be "Chuck Norris can eat his cake and have it too", reversing the proverb "You can't eat your cake and have it too". (Once you eat your cake, you'll no longer have it with you: this proverb is these days more commonly stated as "you can't have your cake and eat it too".)


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