In the book <em>A Year Down Yonder</em>, we meet Mary Alice, who is a 15 year old girl who has to move with her grandmother to a rural town in Illinois. Mary Alice is originally from Chicago, and the book shows the differences that exist between these two places.
One of these differences is the use of language. An expression that comes up in the book is that of "shank's pony." This expression refers to walking, or travelling by foot. Shank is the lower leg, between the knee and the ankle, while pony references the use of horses as transportation.
To go someplace "on Shank's pony" (a common expression) means simply to walk there. The idiom springs from that part of the leg known as the shank, or shin, and the use of ponies for travelling.
It means that even it everyone is doing something wrong, it is not right. It is referring to peer pressure, don't do something just because everyone else it doing it.
Wind, water, tide and muscle - both animal and human - provided sources of energy that are still available to man and are still used to power simple machines in many parts of the world today.
