Straight From the Horse's Ass

Contrary to what the title may suggest, this post is far from BS. I am currently writing this almost 2 hours before posting it! The title is actually meant to suggest the arbitrariness (who would've thought that word would pass with spellcheck) of many age-old sayings (sort of like the Hey, Where's the Cream Filling? post or the When Pigs Fly post, only not at all). So here goes:

What is it with the
Obsession sayings have with
Horse orthodontics


I mean, between "straight from the horse's mouth" and "don't look a gift horse in the mouth," it seems like overkill overall. It would be like taking all sorts of various sayings and making more sayings with that subject (for instance "don't take a sledgehammer to thin ice you happen to be standing on" or "make sure the stove is on before you try to watch the pot boil"). It seems silly. Especially since it's so old that the source is pretty much irrelevant. It would be like saying "Beware the Greeks bearing gifts." Now that saying would just come off as racist. And yes, that was once a saying.

You can really say "beggars can't be choosers" instead of the gift horse one now... for the other one though, nowadays coming straight from the horse's mouth is about as significant as coming from the horse's ass...