Political horse trading_其他_趣味英语-查字典英语网

Political horse trading

In the case of an aging horse, a smart buyer would, say, have the horse open its mouth to see the length of its teeth, as the teeth of horses tend to lengthen as they age (Hence, incidentally, the saying: Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth).

Anyways, it is from the old horse trading market that the term “horse trading” became an accepted phrase for, generally speaking, dishonest business behavior, especially round the negotiating table. This, from Wikipedia:

As standards for ethical business declined in the U.S. in the Gilded Age, the activities of horse traders came increasingly to be seen as the natural and, in part, desirable product of a competitive market rather than as symptoms of the moral depravity of horse traders. In an 1893 New York Times editorial criticizing a proposed law to make it illegal for a newspaper to falsely state its circulation figures, the author declared that “if the lying were stopped by law, the business of horse trading would come to an end, and the country taverns and groceries in the Winter season would be deprived even of the limited eventfulness which they now enjoy.”

Indeed, “if the lying were stopped by law,” the whole business and political world would be turned topsy-turvy. And we wouldn’t mind that either, would we?