Learn English – Meaning of “whip into a lather”

idioms

In New York, basketball phenom Jeremy Lin continues to whip fans of the Knicks into a lather.

What does whip [somebody] into a lather really mean?

Best Answer

It's from whipping a horse to make it gallop faster. Taken to extremes, the horse sweats so much it looks as if it's covered in soap lather. They can and do die from such treatment. OP's context is slightly unusual - a more common form here would be whip into a frenzy (the fans aren't being flogged to the point of exhaustion - they're becoming feverishly excited, like a crazed mob).

I recently saw what at first seemed ridiculous exaggeration in the movie Bite the Bullet (1975). I thought the foam was way over the top, but my horse-riding sister told me it was credible (the movie involves a 700-mile "Endurance Race", so the horses would have been ridden pretty hard).

Thanks to @Hugo for pointing out that this somewhat unusual phenomenon occurs because horse-sweat is rich in latherin, a surfactant which encourages foaming. It can look extreme, but as this comment on the movie at amazon.com, says "Hopefully there was a lot of soap lather being used." I'll second that!

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