#footnotegeek Said this to my daughter just the other day and she asked, "Where does that expression even come from????" Now I can tell her. #thankyoubooks!
mrsh62010 I still don't get the phrase "never look a gift horse in the mouth." Why not? And in what context does the phrase belong? I hate it tbh. Being from the south, I grew up with a lot of nonsensical phrases. My dad even had to hand over the duty of teaching me to drive bc he kept speaking in idioms I didn't understand & it nearly killed us. ? 8y
KVanRead @mrsh62010 hahaha! I think my daughter would agree with you! But i think the point is that it's rude/ungracious to carefully inspect a gift, as age in horses was a measure of their usefulness/longevity so by looking it in the mouth and examining its teeth you'd be asking, "is this gift any good?!"? 8y
mrsh62010 Oooooookay so it refers to a horse which *is* itself a gift to someone, not some sort of mystical gift-bearing creature called a gift-horse who will stomp you if you get near his mouth (I formed this picture young and hadn't updated it since). So it's like looking at the price tag when you open a gift. Thank you. I never thought much about it much before, just wrote it off as something stupid to say 😂 #thankyoulitsy 8y
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KVanRead @mrsh62010 You are so welcome. Thank YOU for the 'mystical gift-bearing creature' image. I love that so much! 8y
vivastory I always thought this was a reference to the horse the Greeks used for the downfall of Troy in Virgil's "Aeneid." 8y
Ericmanciniwriter @mrsh62010 I also thought it was a magical gift giving horse! 🐴 8y
mrsh62010 @Eamann you be careful around that gift horse! Never look him in the mouth, he hates it!!! 😂 So glad I'm not alone hahaha 8y
KVanRead @vivastory That's one gift horse they really ought to have looked in the mouth! 😂 8y
KVanRead @mrsh62010 @Eamann Pretty sure I've got next Halloween covered now. 8y
vivastory Haha. Exactly! 8y
