Hobson's choice

Where it comes from

From Hobson + -’s + choice, widely claimed to have been named after Thomas Hobson (c. 1544–1631) of Cambridge, England, who rented horses and had an extensive stable, but is said to have required each customer to take the horse in the stall closest to the door, to prevent the best horses from always being chosen and becoming overused.

The Oxford English Dictionary also suggests an alternative etymology based on a 1607 work, The Pleasant Conceites of Old Hobson, which refers to one William Hobson (died 1581), a haberdasher from London, who is said to have been unable to recognize his own horse, and so had the habit of waiting at stables until other people had claimed their horses as the one remaining had to be his. This story is most likely fictional as it is identical to one entitled “Of the Two Yong Men that Rode to Walsingham” in Mery Tales and Quick Answeres (1530).