英语博客-北美风情 215、Never look a gift horse in the mouth
You can’t always get what you want, but you should appreciate what is given to you. This episode is about accepting what people give you and not being critical, even if it is not exactly what you wanted. We have some very old expressions in English to remind people to be grateful, like never look a gift horse in the mouth. But nowadays, with gift receipts, do you think this proverbs still holds true?
Maura:So at that time, when a person looked their gift horse in the mouth, they were checking it to see if it was a good gift. And that’s not really a nice thing to do. You know, imagine you give someone a gift and they’re just evaluating it to see if it’s a very good gift. That’s not really nice.
Harp:Yeah. They’re trying to see how expensive it is or if there’s a price tag on it.
Maura:Yeah. Nowadays, it would be like giving someone a shirt and that person would then try to check the name brand to see if it was really expensive or not.
Harp:Yeah. It’s just not very polite. You should appreciate the gift that you’re given.
Maura:I agree. So, let’s give an example with this proverb, to never look a gift horse in the mouth.
Harp:OK.
