funny jane

The other day, my eight year old daughter, Jane asked me why it's "rude to ask someone how old their horse is." I asked her to repeat her question because I didn't quite understand it, and she repeated it; she wanted to know why it is considered rude to ask someone how old their horse is.

So I told her I had never heard that this was considered rude, and asked her to tell me who had told her that.

Well, she said, you have to look at a horse's teeth to know how old it is and there's that saying, "never look a gift horse in the mouth," ergo -- in the world according to Jane -- it must be rude to ask someone how old their horse is!

(Clearly we haven't been reading enough of the classics at home)