One of the most well known of all phrases is probably this one around looking a gift horse in the mouth. Basically this is something that is too good to be true that you would be mad not to take it.
Now what you need to know about this is that you can tell a lot about how good a horse is by looking in its mouth.
If the teeth and mouth are good you can see how OLD it is primarily - is it an old nag or a prime filly for instance?
And so if you were given the horse of a gift it was common practice to look in its mouth and see just what sort of horse you were being given. But you had to do that surreptitiously as it was considered bad manners, as though inspecting very carefully your gift.
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