Proverbs: A Handbook
Wolfgang Mieder
GREENWOOD PRESS
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Greenwood Folklore Handbooks
Folk and Fairy Tales: A Handbook
D.L. Ashliman
Proverbs
Q
A Handbook
Wolfgang Mieder
Greenwood Folklore Handbooks
GREENWOOD PRESS
Westport, Connecticut • London
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Mieder, Wolfgang.
Proverbs : a handbook / Wolfgang Mieder.
p. cm.—(Greenwood folklore handbooks, ISSN 1549–733X)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0–313–32698–3
1. Proverbs—History and criticism. I. Title. II. Series.
PN6401.M487
2004
398.9⬘09—dc22
2004007988
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available.
Copyright © 2004 by Wolfgang Mieder
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be
reproduced, by any process or technique, without the
express written consent of the publisher.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2004007988
ISBN: 0–313–32698–3
ISSN: 1549–733X
First published in 2004
Greenwood Press, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881
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Printed in the United States of America
The paper used in this book complies with the
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1
Copyright Acknowledgments
“The New Fence,” by Raymond Souster is reprinted from Collected Poems of Raymond
Souster by permission of Oberon Press.
“Spite Fence,” from Collected Poems 1930–1986 by Richard Eberhart, copyright 1960,
1976, 1987 by Richard Eberhart. Used by permission of Oxford University Press, Inc.
“Proverbs,” Poetry 120 (1) (April 1972), reprinted with permission of the author.
“Symposium,” from Hay by Paul Muldoon. Copyright © 1998 by Paul Muldoon. Reprinted
by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC. UK Rights granted by Faber and Faber.
Falling from Silence. Poems, by David R. Slavitt. Copyright © 2001 by David R. Slavitt.
Reprinted by permission of Louisiana University Press.
“A word that’s worth a thousand pictures.” Howard Bank advertisement. Compliments of
Banknorth Vermont.
Excerpts reprinted by permission of the publishers and the Trustees of Amherst College
from The Poems of Emily Dickinson, Thomas H. Johnson, ed., Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap
Press of Harvard University Press. Copyright © 1951, 1955, 1963, 1979 by the President and
Fellows of Harvard College.
Every reasonable effort has been made to trace the owners of copyright materials in this
book, but in some instances this has proved impossible. The author and publisher will be glad
to receive information leading to more complete acknowledgments in subsequent printings of
the book and in the meantime extend their apologies for any omissions.
Contents
Introduction
xi
One
Definition and Classification
Definition Attempts
Proverb Markers and Meanings
Origin and Dissemination of Proverbs
Traditional Forms Related to the Proverb
The International Type System of Proverbs
Types of International Proverb Collections
Major Anglo-American Proverb Collections
Various Specialized Proverb Collections
Selected Bibliography
1
2
4
9
13
16
20
22
25
29
Two
Examples and Texts
“Big Fish Eat Little Fish”: A Classical Proverb about
Human Nature
“First Come, First Served”: A Medieval Legal Proverb
from the Millers
“The Apple Doesn’t Fall Far from the Tree”: A Proverb’s
Way from Germany to America
“The Only Good Indian Is a Dead Indian”: A Slanderous
Proverbial Stereotype
“Good Fences Make Good Neighbors”: An Ambiguous
Proverb of Relationships
“A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words”: An Advertising
Slogan Turned American Proverb
33
vii
34
43
52
60
69
79
viii
Contents
Proverbs from Different Cultures and Languages
Authentic American Proverbs
Regional American Proverbs
Native American Proverbs
African American Proverbs
Selected Bibliography
88
100
106
108
112
114
Three
Scholarship and Approaches
Proverb Journals, Essay Volumes, and Bibliographies
Proverb Collections and Future Paremiography
Comprehensive Overviews of Paremiology
Empiricism and Paremiological Minima
Linguistic and Semiotic Considerations
Performance (Speech Acts) in Social Contexts
Issues of Culture, Folklore, and History
Politics, Stereotypes, and Worldview
Sociology, Psychology, and Psychiatry
Use in Folk Narratives and Literature
Religion and Wisdom Literature
Pedagogy and Language Teaching
Iconography: Proverbs as Art
Mass Media and Popular Culture
Selected Bibliography
117
118
121
125
127
131
133
135
137
139
142
144
146
148
150
153
Four
Contexts
“A Man of Fashion Never Has Recourse to Proverbs”:
Lord Chesterfield’s Tilting at Proverbial Windmills
“Early to Bed and Early to Rise”: From Proverb to
Benjamin Franklin and Back
“Behind the Cloud the Sun Is Shining”: Abraham
Lincoln’s Proverbial Fight Against Slavery
“Conventional Phrases Are a Sort of Fireworks”:
Charles Dickens’s Proverbial Language
“Make Hell While the Sun Shines”: Proverbial War
Rhetoric of Winston S. Churchill
“Man Is a Wolf to Man”: Proverbial Dialectics in
Bertolt Brecht
Benjamin Franklin’s “The Way to Wealth”
Proverb Poems and Popular Songs
Proverbs in Caricatures, Cartoons, and Comics
Proverbs and the World of Advertising
Proverbs as Headlines and Slogans
161
162
171
180
189
198
207
216
224
236
244
250
Contents
ix
Bibliography
Bibliographies
Proverb Journals
Major Proverb Studies
Multilingual Proverb Collections
Bilingual Proverb Collections
Anglo-American Proverb Collections
Regional and Thematic Proverb Collections
257
257
258
259
266
269
272
275
Web Resources
279
Glossary
281
Index
Names
Subjects
Proverbs
285
285
290
295
Introduction
T
he wisdom of proverbs has guided people in their social interactions for
thousands of years throughout the world. Proverbs contain everyday experiences and common observations in succinct and formulaic language,
making them easy to remember and ready to be used instantly as effective
rhetoric in oral or written communication. This has been the case during
preliterate times, and there are no signs that proverbs have outlived their usefulness in modern technological societies either. Occasional claims persist
that proverbs are on their way to extinction in highly developed cultures, but
nothing could be further from the truth. While some proverbs have dropped
out of use because their message or metaphor does not fit the times any
longer, new proverbs that reflect the mores and situation of the present are
constantly added to the proverbial repertoire. Thus the once well-known sixteenth-century proverb “Let the cobbler stick to his last” is basically dead
today since the profession of the cobbler is disappearing. If shoes are repaired
at all, people now take them to a shoe-repair shop, and they most likely
would have no idea that a last is a wooden or metal model of the human foot
on which a shoe is placed during repair. The proverb expressed the idea that
one should stick to that work or field in which one is competent or skilled.
As this text based on a specific profession is lost, the general proverb “Every
man to his trade” might be employed, albeit at a clear loss in metaphorical
expressiveness. On the other hand, obviously such proverbs as the mercantile “Another day, another dollar” or “Garbage in, garbage out” from the
world of computers are of more recent vintage. In any case, proverbs are indeed alive and well, and as sapient nuggets they continue to play a significant
role in the modern age.
xi
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Introduction
There are literally thousands of proverbs in the multitude of cultures and
languages of the world. They have been collected and studied for centuries as
informative and useful linguistic signs of cultural values and thoughts. The
earliest proverb collections stem from the third millennium B.C. and were inscribed on Sumerian cuneiform tablets as commonsensical codes of conduct
and everyday observations of human nature. Since proverb collections usually
list the texts of proverbs without their social contexts, they do not reveal their
actual use and function that varies from one situation to another. Nevertheless, the long history of proverb collections from classical antiquity to the
present is truly impressive, ranging from compilations of texts only to richly
annotated scholarly compendia. For most languages there are major multivolume proverb collections available to readers interested in the origin, history, and distribution of their proverbs. In fact, the extant bibliographies of
proverb collections have registered over 20,000 volumes with about 200 new
publications each year. Many of these are small collections of several hundred
texts for the general book market, but invaluable scholarly collections also
continue to be produced with thousands of references. The numerous
proverb collections make it possible to study proverbs on a comparative basis,
establishing for example that the Latin proverb “One hand washes the other”
and the biblical proverb “Man does not live by bread alone” (Deut. 8:3; Matt.
4:4) have been translated into dozens of languages in just that wording. On
the other hand, the German proverb “Morgenstunde hat Gold im Munde”
(The morning hour has gold in its mouth) finds its English equivalent in the
entirely different metaphor of “The early bird catches the worm.” With such
a wealth of proverb collections it should not be surprising that proverb scholars consider paremiography (collection of proverbs) to be one side of the coin
of proverb studies.
The other side is referred to as paremiology (study of proverbs). It too has
a long history, dating back at least as far as Aristotle who had much to say
about various aspects of proverbs. In contrast to paremiographers, who occupy themselves with the collecting and classifying of proverbs, the paremiologists address such questions as the definition, form, structure, style,
content, function, meaning, and value of proverbs. They also differentiate
among the proverbial subgenres that include proverbs as such, as well as
proverbial expressions (“to bite the dust”), proverbial comparisons (“as busy
as a bee”), proverbial interrogatives (“Does a chicken have lips?”), twin formulas (“give and take”), and wellerisms (“‘Each to his own,’ as the farmer
said when he kissed his cow”). There are other related short and often formulaic verbal genres such as sententious remarks, literary quotations, maxims, slogans, and graffiti, but they usually lack the traditional currency of the
Introduction
xiii
proverbial genres, and, with the exception of graffiti, their authors are normally known. But since every proverb obviously originated from one person
once upon a time, there is no reason why a quotation or a slogan should not
become a generally accepted proverb, to wit Theodore Roosevelt’s “Speak
softly and carry a big stick” spoken on September 2, 1901, at the Minnesota
State Fair. For some Americans this might be a political quotation or slogan,
but for those speakers who are not aware of Roosevelt’s coinage of the phrase,
it is a proverb for sure.
The term “phrase” was used on purpose in the previous sentence as a rather
general concept. Especially linguists have decided to refer to all formulaic
phrases as phraseological units or phraseologisms. They have created a new
subfield of study, which they have designated as phraseology (the study of
phrases). That scholarly term serves as an umbrella for all phrasal collocations, including the entire area of paremiology. Linguists also occupy themselves with phraseography (collection and classification of phrases), once
again incorporating paremiography as well. And yet, most linguists deal only
tangentially with proverbs as such in their publications. When they do so,
they usually employ the Greek term based on paremia (proverb), clearly indicating that proverbs are very special phraseological units. While phraseologists do and should include proverbs in their linguistic studies, paremiologists
usually look at proverbs from a more inclusive point of view as they draw on
such fields as anthropology, art, communication, culture, folklore, history, literature, philology, psychology, religion, and sociology.
As with paremiography, the paremiological scholarship has an impressive
history and continues to be very active today. About 400 significant books,
dissertations, and scholarly articles are published each year. The majority of
these studies as well as the new or reprinted collections are listed in my annual
bibliographies in Proverbium: Yearbook of International Proverb Scholarship.
These lists include all the proverb publications that I have been able to add
during any particular year to my international proverb archive at the University of Vermont. The archive contains close to 10,000 scholarly studies on
proverbs and also about 4,000 proverb collections from many languages.
About 9,000 slides of various iconographic representations of proverbs in art
(woodcuts, misericords, emblems, oil paintings) and the mass media (caricatures, cartoons, headlines, advertisements) are also part of this archive that
serves scholars and students worldwide.
For many cultures scholars have written a definitive book on the history of
both the paremiographical publications and paremiological studies. Such
books trace the development of various types of proverb collections and deal
with the origin and dissemination of proverbs in the given language and cul-
xiv
Introduction
ture, discuss definition problems of the various genres, analyze stylistic and
structural aspects, investigate the function and use in different contexts (oral
communication, literature, mass media), and attempt to give an inclusive picture of the meaning and significance of proverbs as verbal strategies. The English language is no exception in this regard. In the middle of the nineteenth
century the philologist and theologian Richard Chenevix Trench (1807–1886)
presented his slim volume On the Lessons in Proverbs (1853) that went through
seven editions during his lifetime and several more later on, including a final
edition in 1905 with the slightly changed title of Proverbs and Their Lessons.
The book represents an important survey of the origin, nature, distribution,
meaning, and significance of proverbs in the English-speaking world. Realizing that all scholars stand on the shoulders of their precursors, I prepared a
reprint in 2003, about 150 years after the original publication, of this still invaluable and most readable study. Fifty years after Trench’s book, F. Edward
Hulme (1841–1909) published his volume on Proverb Lore: Being a Historical
Study of the Similarities, Contrasts, Topics, Meanings, and Other Facets of
Proverbs, Truisms, and Pithy Sayings, as Explained by the Peoples of Many Lands
and Times (1902). Hulme’s treatise basically replaced Trench’s popular volume,
and it was appropriate that it was reprinted in 1968 to honor the work of this
folklore scholar.
But according to proverbial wisdom, “All good things come in threes,” and
thus there is also Archer Taylor’s (1890–1973) magisterial volume on The
Proverb (1931). As the world’s leading paremiologist of the twentieth century,
Taylor wrote the definitive book on the subject and pioneered a vigorous
American interest in proverbs that included such renowned scholars as Alan
Dundes, Wolfram Eberhard, Stuart A. Gallacher, Richard Jente, Wayland D.
Hand, John G. Kunstmann, Charles Speroni, and Bartlett Jere Whiting. The
book was reprinted in 1962 together with a previously published An Index to
“The Proverb” (1934), and I had the distinct honor of reprinting The Proverb
and An Index to “The Proverb” (1985) some 50 years after the original publication. Taylor’s volume deals with definition problems, metaphorical
proverbs, proverbial types, variants, proverbs in folk narratives and literature,
loan translations, and the classical or biblical origin of many proverbs. Taylor
also analyzes customs and superstitions reflected in proverbs, he looks at legal,
medical, and weather proverbs, and he investigates their content and style.
Proverbial stereotypes, proverbial expressions and comparisons, and
wellerisms are also discussed in this comprehensive and comparative volume
on European proverbs. Seventy-five years after its original publication, Archer
Taylor’s The Proverb is still considered to be the classic study on the proverb
genre. Paremiologists around the globe have benefited from this unique vol-
Introduction
xv
ume, and there is no doubt that this book remains required reading for anybody interested in proverbs.
It is then a daunting task for me to present my own attempt of yet another
treatise on proverbs. I have learned much from the three books by Trench,
Hulme, and Taylor, but their volumes are 150, 100, and 75 years old, respectively. The time has clearly come to take a fresh look at proverbs that is based
on the work of these three paremiological scholars but that is also informed
by the new scholarship of the past seven decades, including to a considerable
degree my own extensive work in this field. There will be considerable materials and theoretical findings in my volume that were not available or known
to my three precursors. In its approach, this new book will take a position between the Trench and Hulme volumes on the one hand and Taylor’s book on
the other. The former were meant for a wide readership, while Taylor was addressing a scholarly community that justified a comparative approach based
on proverbs in various foreign languages. My book is intended for the educated general reader with an emphasis on Anglo-American proverbs in English-language contexts. It is also but one volume in the Greenwood Folklore
Handbooks series, and as such it is by necessity and design confined to a prescribed outline and structure. Since the book is intended for English readers,
almost all proverbs discussed will be from the Anglo-American corpus. When
proverbs are cited from other languages, they will usually be rendered in English translation only. This linguistic restriction is also evident in the short
chapter bibliographies (often referring to journal articles or book chapters)
and the extensive bibliography (including only book-length studies) at the
end of the volume. The present book is thus not an inclusive international
and comparative survey of paremiology, but it is an attempt to lay out the rich
field of proverbs to general readers of English anywhere in the world. With
English or the various “Englishes” gaining ever greater prominence as the
global lingua franca, these linguistic limitations seem to be justified and to a
considerable degree even desirable. What will be stated and explained by
quoting from the Anglo-American stock of proverbs will for the most part be
transferable to the proverbial wisdom of other cultures and languages. How
could it be otherwise, since the human condition distilled in the world’s
proverbs proves to be more alike than different. The American proverb
“Human nature is the same all over the world” quite literally hits the proverbial nail on the head.
At the end of these introductory remarks I would like to thank George
Butler, general editor of the Greenwood Folklore Handbooks series, for his
help and guidance during my work on this book. I also extend many thanks
to Audrey Klein and Karl F. Bridges for their help in obtaining various per-
xvi
Introduction
missions. In addition I wish to express my sincere appreciation to my friend
Alan Dundes (Berkeley) for his continued interest in and comments on my
proverb studies. My colleagues and my students in the Department of German and Russian at the University of Vermont have also been most supportive. The same is true for my wife, Barbara Mieder, who lets me be the
proverbial fool obsessed with his research endeavors. And lasting thanks and
appreciation are due my beloved father, Horst Mieder, whose death I grieved
while working on this book. He instilled in me a solid work ethic and showed
me by example that a good life includes helping and caring for others. As I aspire to live up to his commitment to high moral standards, I hope that I
might do justice now and then to the proverb “Like father, like son” in its
most positive sense.
Wolfgang Mieder
Q
One
Definition and Classification
Of the various verbal folklore genres (i.e., fairy tales, legends, tall tales, jokes,
and riddles), proverbs are the most concise but not necessarily the simplest
form. The vast scholarship on proverbs is ample proof that they are anything
but mundane matters in human communication. Proverbs fulfill the human
need to summarize experiences and observations into nuggets of wisdom that
provide ready-made comments on personal relationships and social affairs.
There are proverbs for every imaginable context, and they are thus as contradictory as life itself. Proverb pairs like “Absence makes the heart grow fonder”
and “Out of sight, out of mind” or “Look before you leap” and “He who hesitates is lost” make it abundantly clear that proverbs do not represent a logical
philosophical system. But when the proper proverb is chosen for a particular
situation, it is bound to fit perfectly and it becomes an effective formulaic
strategy of communication. And contrary to some isolated opinions, proverbs
have not lost their usefulness in modern society. They serve people well in oral
speech and the written word, coming to mind almost automatically as prefabricated verbal units. While the frequency of their employment might well
vary among people and contexts, proverbs are a significant rhetorical force in
various modes of communication, from friendly chats, powerful political
speeches, and religious sermons to lyrical poetry, best-seller novels, and the
influential mass media. Proverbs are in fact everywhere, and it is exactly their
ubiquity that has led scholars from many disciplines to study them from classical times to the modern age. There is no doubt that the playful alteration of
the proverb “If the shoe fits, wear it” to “If the proverb fits, use it” says it all!
While the first part of this section deals with definition matters, the second
part analyzes how proverbs have been classified in a multitude of different
ways in thousands of proverb collections of differing quality and scope. This
1
2
Proverbs
is not the place to review the status of internationally or nationally oriented
paremiography (proverb collections) in great detail (see Mieder 1990). Suffice
it to say that there exist many major proverb dictionaries that list equivalent
proverbs from 2 to 15 different languages. Especially European paremiographers have worked on such synchronic comparative collections that at times
include indices, frequency analyses, sources, geographical distribution, and so
on. Collections of this type help to advance the structural, semantic, and
semiotic studies of scholars like Grigorii L’vovich Permiakov and Matti Kuusi,
who tried to develop an international type system of proverbs (see Permiakov
1970 [1979]; Kuusi 1972). By establishing lists of international proverb
structures in combination with semantic and semiotic considerations, over
700 “universal” proverb types have now been found.
DEFINITION ATTEMPTS
The definition of a proverb has caused scholars from many disciplines
much chagrin over the centuries. Many attempts at definition have been
made from Aristotle to the present time (Kindstrand 1978; Russo 1983),
ranging from philosophical considerations to cut-and-dry lexicographical
definitions. The American paremiologist Bartlett Jere Whiting (1904–1995)
reviewed many definitions in an important article on “The Nature of the
Proverb” (1932), summarizing his findings in a lengthy conglomerate version
of his own:
A proverb is an expression which, owing its birth to the people, testifies
to its origin in form and phrase. It expresses what is apparently a fundamental truth—that is, a truism,—in homely language, often
adorned, however, with alliteration and rhyme. It is usually short, but
need not be; it is usually true, but need not be. Some proverbs have
both a literal and figurative meaning, either of which makes perfect
sense; but more often they have but one of the two. A proverb must be
venerable; it must bear the sign of antiquity, and, since such signs may
be counterfeited by a clever literary man, it should be attested in different places at different times. This last requirement we must often waive
in dealing with very early literature, where the material at our disposal
is incomplete. (Whiting 1932: 302; also in Whiting 1994: 80)
That certainly is a useful summation, albeit not a very precise statement. It
represents a reaction to a tongue-in-cheek statement that Whiting’s friend
Archer Taylor had made a year earlier at the beginning of his classic study on
Definition and Classification
3
The Proverb (1931). Taylor begins his 223-page analysis of proverbs with the
claim that a definitive definition of the genre is an impossibility. Of course, he
then spends the next 200 pages explaining in much detail what proverbs are
all about. His somewhat ironical introductory remark has become an oftenquoted paragraph, and his claim that “an incommunicable quality tells us this
sentence is proverbial and that is not” has gained “proverbial” status among
paremiologists:
The definition of a proverb is too difficult to repay the undertaking; and
should we fortunately combine in a single definition all the essential elements and give each the proper emphasis, we should not even then
have a touchstone. An incommunicable quality tells us this sentence is
proverbial and that one is not. Hence no definition will enable us to
identify positively a sentence as proverbial. Those who do not speak a
language can never recognize all its proverbs, and similarly much that is
truly proverbial escapes us in Elizabethan and older English. Let us be
content with recognizing that a proverb is a saying current among the
folk. At least so much of a definition is indisputable. (Taylor 1931
[1962, 1985]: 3)
In 1985 I put Taylor’s supposition that people in general know what a
proverb is to the test and simply asked a cross section of 55 Vermont citizens how they would define a proverb. After all, the general folk use
proverbs all the time, and one would think that they too know intuitively
what a proverb represents. A frequency study of the words contained in the
over 50 definition attempts made it possible to formulate the following
general description:
A proverb is a short, generally known sentence of the folk which contains wisdom, truth, morals, and traditional views in a metaphorical,
fixed and memorizable form and which is handed down from generation to generation. (Mieder 1985: 119; also in Mieder 1993: 24)
This summary definition mirrors that of Whiting, while the short conglomerate version “A proverb is a short sentence of wisdom” based on the words
most often used in the 50-odd definitions resembles Taylor’s statement. In
any case, people in general, not bothered by academic concerns and intricacies, have a good idea of what a proverb encompasses. This is also born out by
a number of proverbs about proverbs, representing folk definitions as it were:
“Proverbs are the children of experience,” “Proverbs are the wisdom of the
4
Proverbs
streets,” and “Proverbs are true words.” Proverbs obviously contain a lot of
common sense, experience, wisdom, and truth, and as such they represent
ready-made traditional strategies in oral speech acts and writings from high
literature to the mass media (see Hasan-Rokem 1990).
But proverb scholars have, of course, not been satisfied with the vagaries of
this type of definition. Again and again they have tried to approximate the definition, but there is no space or necessity to comment on all of them here. Suffice it to cite two more general work-definitions starting with Stuart A.
Gallacher’s short statement from 1959, which as his student has served me well
in my proverbial endeavors: “A proverb is a concise statement of an apparent
truth which has [had, or will have] currency among the people” (Gallacher
1959: 47). The parenthetical modifications have been added by me to indicate
that while some proverbs have been in use for hundreds of years, some have
passed out of circulation and new ones will certainly be coined. In a number
of encyclopedia articles I have had to deal with the vexing problem of defining
proverbs precisely as well. My attempt in American Folklore: An Encyclopedia
(1996) shows my indebtedness to my teacher Stuart A. Gallacher:
Proverbs [are] concise traditional statements of apparent truths with
currency among the folk. More elaborately stated, proverbs are short,
generally known sentences of the folk that contain wisdom, truths,
morals, and traditional views in a metaphorical, fixed, and memorizable
form and that are handed down from generation to generation. (Mieder
1996a: 597)
Certainly these short and general definitions do not pay proper attention to
numerous fascinating aspects of proverbs as formulaic and metaphorical texts
and as regards their use, function, and meaning in varied contexts. No wonder then that paremiologists have expanded on basic definitions by being
more inclusive and descriptive and by exemplifying various proverbial characteristics by means of examples.
PROVERB MARKERS AND MEANINGS
One of the major concerns of paremiologists is to get to the bottom of that
“incommunicable quality” of what may be called proverbiality. It is my contention that not even the most complex definition will be able to identify all
proverbs. The crux of the matter lies in the concept of traditionality that includes both aspects of age and currency. In other words, a particular sentence
might sound like a proverb, as for example “Where there are stars, there are
Definition and Classification
5
scandals,” and yet not be one. The invented sentence is based on the common
proverb pattern “Where there are Xs, there are Ys,” and it appears to contain
some perceived generalizations about the behavior of movie stars. But that
does not attest to its alleged proverbiality. This piece of created wisdom would
have to be taken over by others and be used over a period of time to be considered a bona fide proverb. As it stands here on this page, it is nothing more
than a “proverb-like” statement. Proverb definitions often include the term
“traditional,” but proving that a given text has gained traditionality is quite
another matter. This makes it so very difficult to decide what new statements
have in fact gained proverbial status. Such modern American texts as “Been
there, done that,” “The camera doesn’t lie,” “No guts, no glory,” and “You can’t
beat (fight) city hall ” have made it (see Doyle 1996). Why is this so? Simply
stated, they have been registered numerous times over time. The last example
also shows the formation of variants. And it is exactly the requirement of all
folklore, including proverbs, that various references and possibly also variants
are found that attest to oral currency.
Stephen D. Winick, in an erudite essay on “Intertextuality and Innovation
in a Definition of the Proverb Genre” (2003), has tried valiantly to break with
the requirement of traditionality for new proverbs, arguing that a text becomes a proverb upon its creation (see also Honeck and Welge 1997). That
would make the sentence “Where there are stars, there are scandals” a
proverb! As a folklorist and paremiologist I disagree with this assessment. The
fact that the sentence is “proverb-like” does not make it a folk proverb, putting in question Winick’s convoluted definition:
Proverbs are brief (sentence-length) entextualized utterances which derive a sense of wisdom, wit and authority from explicit and intentional
intertextual reference to a tradition of previous similar wisdom utterances. This intertextual reference may take many forms, including replication (i.e., repetition of the text from previous contexts), imitation
(i.e., modeling a new utterance after a previous utterance), or use of features (rhyme, alliteration, meter, ascription to the elders, etc.) associated
with previous wisdom sayings. Finally, proverbs address recurrent social
situations in a strategic way. (Winick 2003: 595)
While Winick goes too far in claiming proverbiality for “proverb-like” utterances (i.e., “explicit and intentional intertextual reference to a tradition of
previous similar wisdom utterances”), he includes other valid and important
criteria of proverbiality that summarize the findings of important theoretical
work in paremiology.
6
Proverbs
Winick speaks of “features” of proverbiality, while other scholars have
talked of “markers” that help to identify texts as proverbs in addition to the
requirement of traditionality. The anthropologist George Milner observed
that many proverbs are characterized by a quadripartite structure. This is the
case with such proverbs as “Who pays the piper, calls the tune” and “What the
eye doesn’t see, the heart doesn’t grieve over.” These texts can be divided into
four parts with either positive or negative values to each of the four elements.
There are thus sixteen possible structural patterns that characterize this type
of proverb (see Milner 1971). However, “Who buys the beer, determines the
party” also exhibits a quadripartite structure and is most certainly not a
proverb. Folklorist Alan Dundes runs into a similar problem with his definition of a proverb being a propositional statement consisting of at least a
topic and a comment, as for example in “Money talks.” This also means that
a proverb must at least consist of two words. For longer proverbs Dundes is
able to show that they are based on an oppositional or non-oppositional
structure, as “Man proposes but God disposes” or “Where there’s a will,
there’s a way.” Yet the statement “Politicians decide but soldiers fight” is certainly not a proverb, even though it follows an oppositional structure. Dundes knew of this problem with his structural approach to proverbs, and he did
well in adding the aspect of traditionality to his otherwise useful definition:
The proverb appears to be a traditional propositional statement consisting of at least one descriptive element, a descriptive element consisting
of a topic and a comment. This means that proverbs must have at least
two words. Proverbs which contain a single descriptive element are
non-oppositional. Proverbs with two or more descriptive elements may
be either oppositional or non-oppositional. (Dundes 1975: 970; also in
Mieder and Dundes 1981 [1994]: 60)
As can be seen, the structural approach to the conundrum of a proverb definition does not seem to solve the problem either. The necessary ingredient of
traditionality keeps rearing its ugly head.
But speaking of structural matters, it is also important to mention that the
thousands of proverbs of any language can be reduced to certain structures or
patterns (see Peukes 1977). How else could there be so many proverbial texts
based on a few words? Some of the more common patterns, and by no means
only in the English language, are “Better X than Y,” “Like X, like Y,” “No X
without Y,” “One X doesn’t make a Y,” “If X, then Y,” calling to mind such
well-known proverbs as “Better poor with honor than rich with shame,” “Like
father, like son,” “No work, no pay,” “One robin doesn’t make a spring,” and
Definition and Classification
7
“If at first you don’t succeed, then try, try again.” These common structures
frequently also serve as the basis of modern proverbs, as “Better Red than
dead” and its reverse “Better dead than Red” from the time of the Cold War
with its anticommunism propaganda (see Barrick 1979).
While structural paradigms might at least help in identifying traditional
proverbs, there are several other markers available to the scholar. Shortness is
certainly one of them, with the average length of a proverb consisting of
about seven words. But there are, of course, also much longer proverbs that
break the conciseness feature, as for example the paradoxical Bible proverb “It
is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to
enter into the kingdom of God” (Matt. 19:24). Furthermore, proverbs are
often shortened to mere allusions owing to their general recognizability. Such
truncated proverbs appear in oral speech as well as in literature or the mass
media. Why should a journalist cite the entire proverb “A bird in the hand is
worth two in the bush” in a large-print headline when the remnant “A bird in
the hand . . . ” will bring the entire proverb to mind automatically, at least in
the case of native speakers of English. Earlier scholars have overstated the fixity of proverbs. In actual use, especially in the case of intentional speech play,
proverbs are quite often manipulated. Neal Norrick in his valuable study on
How Proverbs Mean (1985) has concluded that “for well known proverbs,
mention of one crucial recognizable phrase [i.e., part] serves to call forth the
entire proverb,” speaking of “this minimal recognizable unit as the kernel of
the proverb” (Norrick 1985: 45). Proverbs are definitely fixed only in the
proverb collections; otherwise they can be used rather freely, even though the
predominant way of citing them is in their unaltered entirety.
Many proverbs also exhibit certain stylistic features that help a statement
to gain and maintain proverbial status (see Blehr 1973). Paremiologists have
long identified numerous poetic devices, but Shirley Arora summarized them
well in her seminal article on “The Perception of Proverbiality” (1984). Such
stylistic markers include alliteration: “Practice makes perfect,” “Forgive and
forget,” and “Every law has a loophole”; parallelism: “Ill got, ill spent,”
“Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” and “Easy come, easy go”; rhyme: “A little pot is soon hot,” “There’s many a slip between the cup and the lip,” and
“When the cat’s away, the mice will play”; and ellipsis: “More haste, less
speed,” “Once bitten, twice shy,” and “Deeds, not words.” Besides these external markers there are also internal features that add to the rhetorical effectiveness of proverbs, among them hyperbole: “All is fair in love and war,”
“Faint heart never won fair lady”; paradox: “The longest way around is the
shortest way home,” “The nearer the church, the farther from God”; and personification: “Love will find a way,” “Hunger is the best cook.” Not all but
8
Proverbs
most proverbs contain a metaphor, among them such common texts as “A
watched pot never boils,” “The squeaky wheel gets the grease,” and “Birds of a
feather flock together.” But some non-metaphorical proverbs have reached
equal popularity, for example “Knowledge is power,” “Honesty is the best policy,” and “Virtue is its own reward.”
The preference for metaphorical proverbs lies in the fact that they can be employed in a figurative or indirect way. Verbal folklore in general is based on indirection, and much can indeed be said or implied by the opportune use of such
proverbs as “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth,” “Don’t count your chickens
before they are hatched,” “Every cloud has a silver lining,” “You cannot teach an
old dog new tricks,” or “All that glitters is not gold.” By associating an actual situation with a metaphorical proverb, the particular matter is generalized into a
common occurrence of life. Instead of scolding someone directly for not behaving according to the cultural customs of a different social or cultural setting,
one might indirectly comment that “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.” If
someone must be warned to be more careful with health issues, the proverb “An
ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” might well serve the purpose to
add some commonly accepted wisdom to the argument. Or instead of explaining at great length that the time for action has come, the proverb “Strike while
the iron is hot” expresses the matter in metaphorical but strong language that
contains much traditional wisdom. Kenneth Burke has provided the following
explanation of this effective use of metaphorical proverbs: “Proverbs are strategies for dealing with situations. In so far as situations are typical and recurrent
in a given social structure, people develop names for them and strategies for
handling them. Another name for strategies might be attitudes” (Burke 1941:
256). Proverbs in actual use refer to social situations, and it is this social context
that in turn gives them meaning (see Seitel 1969). They act as signs for human
behavior and social contexts and as such must be studied both from the structural and semiotic point of view (see Grzybek 1987; Zholkovskii 1978).
The meaning of proverbs is thus very much dependent on the contexts in
which they appear. Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett has shown how a number
of common proverbs have in fact multiple meanings that come to light only
in particular situations. For example, she asked about 80 students in Texas to
explain the meaning of the proverb “A friend in need is a friend indeed.” Here
are the different explanations with comments on the different sources of the
multiple meanings:
1. Someone who feels close enough to you to be able to ask you for help when he
is in need is really your friend.—Syntactic ambiguity (is your friend in need or
are you in need).
Definition and Classification
9
2. Someone who helps you when you are in need is really your friend.—Lexical
ambiguity (indeed or in deed).
3. Someone who helps you by means of his actions (deeds) when you need him is
a real friend as opposed to someone who just makes promises.—Key meaning.
4. Someone who is only your friend when he needs you is not a true friend.—Does
“a friend indeed” mean “a true friend” or “not a true friend”? (KirshenblattGimblett 1973: 822; also in Mieder and Dundes 1981 [1994]: 113–114).
Clearly only a specific context will reveal what the proverb does in fact want
to say. The Estonian paremiologist Arvo Krikmann has spoken in this regard
of the “semantic indefiniteness” of proverbs that results from their heterosituativity, poly-functionality, and poly-semanticity (see Krikmann 1974a
and 1974b). The meaning of any proverb must therefore be analyzed in its
unique context, be it social, literary, rhetorical, journalistic, or whatever.
ORIGIN AND DISSEMINATION OF PROVERBS
Proverbs, like riddles, jokes, or fairy tales, do not fall out of the sky and neither are they products of a mythical soul of the folk. Instead they are always
coined by an individual either intentionally or unintentionally, as expressed in
Lord John Russell’s well-known one-line proverb definition that has taken on
a proverbial status of sorts: “A proverb is the wit of one, and the wisdom of
many” (ca. 1850). If the statement contains an element of truth or wisdom,
and if it exhibits one or more proverbial markers, it might “catch on” and be
used first in a small family circle, and subsequently in a village, a city, a region,
a country, a continent, and eventually the world. The global spread of proverbs
is not a pipe dream, since certain ancient proverbs have in fact spread to many
parts of the world. Today, with the incredible power of the mass media, a
newly formulated proverb-like statement might become a bona fide proverb
relatively quickly by way of the radio, television, and print media. As with verbal folklore in general, the original statement might well be varied a bit as it
gets picked up and becomes ever more an anonymous proverb whose wording,
structure, style, and metaphor are such that it is memorable. Older literary
sources show very clearly that proverbs existed in such variants until one dominant wording eventually became the standard, to wit the following three historical variants of a proverb of prudence: “It is good to be wise before the
mischief ” (1584), “After the business is over, every one is wise” (1666), and “It
is easy to be wise after the event” (1900), with the latter version having become
today’s standard form (Smith 1935 [1970]: 898).
10
Proverbs
It is usually quite difficult to trace the origin and history of a proverb in a
particular language. Such studies very quickly take on major proportions, and
they get very involved if the proverb under investigation proves to go back to
medieval times or even further to classical antiquity. Any bilingual speaker or
translator will have noticed that there exist two types of proverbs. On the one
hand, there are those proverbs that have the same meaning but different
structures, vocabulary, and metaphors, and they consequently have different
origins in their respective languages. Thus English speakers since Shakespeare
say “Brevity is the soul of wit,” while the Germans utter “In der Kürze liegt die
Würze” (In brevity there is [lies] spice). Whoever needs to translate one of
these texts would have to know the quite different equivalent in the target
language or find it in a dictionary. Regional proverbs become especially difficult translation problems, since possible equivalents are often missing from
dictionaries that tend to include only the more common proverbs. On the
other hand, many proverbs are identical not only in German and English but
in most Germanic, Romance, and Slavic languages of Europe, and these do
not present any particular translation problem. In other words, there exist
general European proverbs, that is proverbs that have been disseminated
through precise loan translations throughout Europe. That is why Emanuel
Strauss could publish his three-volume Dictionary of European Proverbs
(1994) and why Gyula Paczolay could follow suit with his invaluable collection of European Proverbs in 55 Languages (1997), to name but two of the
many polyglot proverb collections. But how can all of this be explained? Since
when do these common European proverbs exist, of which many also made it
to North America with the waves of immigrants?
Four sources for the distribution of European proverbs can be identified
(similar issues have occurred in the dissemination of proverbs in Asian,
African, and other linguistic and cultural groups). There is first of all Greek
and Roman antiquity, whose proverbial wisdom found a broad geographical
dissemination primarily through the Latin language. The scholarly study of
proverbs begins with Aristotle, and many Greek proverbs have been found in
the works of Plato, Sophocles, Homer, Aristophanes, Aeschylus, Euripides,
and so on. Many of them reappeared in Latin translation in Plautus, Terence,
Cicero, Horace, and other Roman writers (see Mieder and Bryan 1996). Ancient writers also added new Latin proverbs, and many of these classical texts
became part of a rich medieval Latin proverb tradition. More importantly,
however, these common Latin texts were then translated into the many developing European languages. Erasmus of Rotterdam played a major role in
spreading this classical and medieval wisdom throughout Europe by means of
the many editions of his Adagia (1500ff.) that contains over four thousand
Definition and Classification
11
explanatory notes and essays on classical proverbs and proverbial expressions
(see Phillips 1964). His works were read and translated, and he himself had
also shown interest in early Dutch regional proverbs. The same is true for
Martin Luther in Germany, who was a masterful translator of classical
proverbs but who also employed indigenous German proverbs in his writings
(see Cornette 1942 [1997]). Latin proverbs were used in school translation
exercises, and many of them entered the various languages through oral channels, thus spreading classical wisdom through the written and spoken word all
over Europe. By way of English they traveled on to Australia, Canada, the
United States, and the rest of the world where English is used as a second language. Some of these proverbs have truly taken on an international and global
currency, showing once again that they contain universal human experiences
and insights.
There is then no doubt that a considerable corpus of common European
proverbs can be traced back to classical times. Since they were loan translated
from the same sources, they exist in the many languages of Europe in identical forms. Little wonder then that Gyula Paczolay was able to find exact
equivalents of the classical proverb “Where there is smoke, there is fire” in 54
European languages. A few other very popular proverbs from classical times
that are still very much in use today in Europe and elsewhere are: “Barking
dogs do not bite” (51 European languages), “One swallow does not make a
summer” (49), “Walls have ears” (46), “One hand washes the other” (46),
“Make haste slowly” (43), “Children and fools tell the truth” (41), “Still waters run deep” (38), “Love is blind” (37), and “Fish always begin to stink at the
head” (33). Their general use in present-day Europe and beyond indicates a
strong intellectual, ethical, and human bond among people. All of these texts
express general human wisdom without any specific national or ethnic references. And since they are basically identical in all languages, they are and will
continue to be effective modes of metaphorical communication among Europeans, North Americans, and other peoples.
A second source of proverbs for the entire European continent and beyond
is the Bible, whose proverbs date back to classical antiquity and early wisdom
literature. As a widely translated book, the Bible had a major influence on the
distribution of common proverbs since the various translators were dealing
with the same texts. Several dozen biblical proverbs are thus current in identical wordings in many European languages, even though speakers might not
remember that they are employing proverbs from the Bible. A few obvious examples are “As you sow, so you reap” (Paczolay lists 52 European references;
see Gal. 6:7), “He who digs a pit for others, falls in himself ” (48; Prov. 26:27),
“He that will not work, shall not eat” (43; 2 Thess. 3:10), “Do as you would
12
Proverbs
be done by” (Matt. 7:12), “A prophet is not without honor save in his own
country” (39; Matt. 13:57), “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” (38; Exod.
21:24), and “There is nothing new under the sun” (29; Eccles. 1:9). It is important to mention, however, that the number of biblical proverbs in various
European languages is not identical. Much depended on the linguistic skills
of the translators. In the case of Martin Luther, quite a few of his German formulations have actually become proverbial without having been proverbs in
the original text.
The third source for common European proverbs is medieval Latin. It
must not be forgotten that the Latin language of the Middle Ages had the status of a lingua franca, and as such it developed new proverbs that cannot be
traced back to classical times. Hans Walther and Paul Gerhard Schmidt have
put together thousands of medieval proverbs in their massive 9-volume
collection of Lateinische Sprichwörter und Sentenzen des Mittelalters (1963–
1986), and the 13-volume Lexikon der Sprichwörter des romanisch-germanischen
Mittelalters (1995–2002) by Samuel Singer and Ricarda Liver shows the relationship of many of these Latin proverbs to those of the vulgate languages.
Many medieval Latin proverbs in their exact translations have spread to European languages, and they certainly belong to some of the most popular
proverbs today. A few well-known examples are: “Crows will not pick out
crows’ eyes” (Paczolay lists 48 European references), “Strike while the iron is
hot” (48), “New brooms sweep clean” (47), “All that glitters is not gold ” (47),
“When the cat is away, the mice will play” (46), “The pitcher goes so long to
the well until it breaks at last” (40), “No rose without thorns” (39), “At night
all cats are grey” (38), and “Clothes do not make the man” (37). Of special interest is the Middle Latin proverb “Mille via ducunt hominem per secula ad
Romam” from the twelfth century, for which Gyula Paczolay cites 33 European equivalents. In all these languages the direct loan translation of “All
roads lead to Rome” exists. However, there are also variants that replace
“Rome” with another city. In an Estonian proverb the city is St. Petersburg, a
Finnish proverb refers to the old capital Turku, a Russian proverb mentions
Moscow, and a Turkish proverb names Mecca. But these are variants that one
might well have expected in Europe, and perhaps one day the American version “All roads lead to Washington” will also appear in a proverb collection. It
probably exists, but has simply not been recorded yet. As for one speaker, I
know that I have used this variant from time to time when discussing national
politics.
The fourth source for common European proverbs reverses the historical
move of proverbs from Europe to the United States. They are modern texts
that have been disseminated since the middle of the twentieth century
Definition and Classification
13
throughout Europe by means of the mass media. A few American proverbs
that are already spreading across the European continent either in the new
lingua franca of English or in new loan translations are “A picture is worth a
thousand words,” “It takes two to tango,” and “Garbage in, garbage out”
(from the world of computers). Of special interest is also the “Europeanization” of the well-known American proverb “What’s good for General Motors
is good for America,” which the president of General Motors Charles Erwin
Wilson coined on January 15, 1953, during a Senate hearing. Willy Brandt,
the renowned European politician, changed this proverb in a loan translation
to fit the European context. Calling for European solidarity in a speech on
November 18, 1971, he exclaimed: “Im übrigen könnte man jedoch in Abwandlung eines alten amerikanischen Sprichwortes sagen: Was gut ist für Europa, ist gut für die Vereinigten Staaten. Die Zeit des Feiertags-Europäertums
ist vorbei, Europa ist unser Alltag” (All around one could say by changing an
old American proverb: What is good for Europe, is good for the United
States. The time of holiday-Europeanness is over, Europe is our normal workday). One is inclined to change the sixteenth-century proverb “Handsome is
as handsome does” to the new proverbial slogan “Europe is as Europe does”
to fit the new European consciousness as the move towards unity continues
(Mieder 2000). In any case, the United States and its English language are not
only spreading new words throughout Europe and the rest of the world, they
are also disseminating new proverbs from popular culture (music, film, etc.)
and the mass media (advertisements, cartoons, etc.) as bits of wisdom that fit
the twenty-first century.
TRADITIONAL FORMS RELATED TO THE PROVERB
Although this book is concerned primarily with proverbs as such, it is of
interest to take at least a cursory glance at some of the other proverbial genres
(see Barley 1974). While proverbs are complete thoughts that can stand by
themselves, there are such subgenres as proverbial expressions, proverbial
comparisons, proverbial exaggerations, and twin (binary) formulas, which are
fragmentary and for the most part metaphorical phrases that must be integrated into a sentence. Proverbial expressions are usually verbal phrases, as for
example “to throw the book at someone,” “to cry over spilled milk,” “to blow
one’s own horn,” “to be a tempest in a teacup,” “to look for a needle in a
haystack,” “to be a stumbling block,” “to be between a rock and a hard place,”
and “to carry coals to Newcastle.” Proverbial comparisons can conveniently be
divided into two structural groups. The first follows the pattern of “as X as Y,”
as indicated by such common comparisons as “as black as night,” “as busy as a
14
Proverbs
bee,” “as clear as daylight,” “as drunk as a fish,” “as mad as a hatter,” “as soft as
putty,” and “as swift as the wind.” The second group is based on a verbal comparison with “like”: “to work like a dog,” “to look like a million dollars,” “to
watch like a hawk,” “to sleep like a lamb,” “to spend money like a drunken
sailor,” “to squeal like a pig,” and “to vanish like snow.” As can be seen from
just these examples, such texts add much metaphorical expressiveness both to
oral and written communication. Nevertheless, English teachers tend to discourage their students from using what they call “clichés” in their various
writing assignments. They might be partially correct in these admonitions,
especially when their students overuse them. But an occasional proverbial
statement at the right place and time is quite appropriate for emphasis and
colorful imagery. One need only to look at the writings of such Nobel prize
winners for literature as Thomas Mann, Eugene O’Neill, or Winston S.
Churchill to see that they made repeated and effective use of proverbial language (see Bryan and Mieder 1995; Mieder and Bryan 1995).
Proverbial exaggerations can also take on important stylistic functions, especially if one wants to ridicule a person or situation. Such exaggerations usually describe the extraordinary degree to which someone or something
possesses a certain characteristic. Many of these formulaic phrases are based
on the structural pattern “so . . . (that),” as is the case in the following examples: “He’s so angry he can’t spit straight,” “She is so stupid that she is unable
to boil water without burning it,” “It rained so hard that the water stood 10
feet out of the well,” “He is so miserly that he crawls under the door to save
the hinges,” “She moves so slowly that you can watch the snails whiz by,” and
“You are so stingy you would take candy from a child.” There is a great deal of
folk humor in these exaggerations, but depending on how and in what context they are uttered, they can take on a very satirical tone. But still, these
phrases are certainly more entertaining and creative than some of the standard curses based on scatological expletives.
So-called twin (binary) formulas are traditional word pairs that are linked
together by alliteration and/or rhyme, as for example “short and sweet,” “tit
for tat,” “spick and span,” “rags and riches,” “live and learn,” “sink or swim,”
and “men and mice.” None of these proverbial phrases or phraseological units
(phraseologisms), as the linguists prefer to refer to them, contain any complete thought or wisdom. But they are proverbial in that they are traditional
and metaphorical, being employed even more frequently than actual
proverbs. While they supply colorful elements of folk speech to oral and written communication, they cannot take on an existence by themselves. Employing a metaphor from the building trade, one might say that proverbs are
the bricks, while proverbial phrases are the mortar.
Definition and Classification
15
But proverbs can at times hit people like a hard brick with their continuous claim of moral authority and didactic intent. While the folk has usually
accepted proverbs at face value, eagerly handing them on from generation to
generation, there have obviously also been moments where people have been
fed up with all of this straightforward wisdom. Some comic relief was desired, and just as tall tales provide an outlet for folk humor in the realm of
folk narratives, so-called wellerisms are replete with humor, irony, and satire.
Wellerisms consist of a triadic structure: (1) a statement (often a proverb),
(2) an identification of a speaker (a person or animal), and (3) a phrase that
places the statement into an unexpected situation. In the case where
proverbs make up the first part, their claim to truth or wisdom is questioned
by the resulting pun. The term “wellerism” is a scholarly designation and has
made its way into only a few dictionaries. It is based on the character of Sam
Weller in Charles Dickens’s novel The Pickwick Papers (1837), because
Weller delighted in using these triadic structures (see Baer 1983; Bryan and
Mieder 1997). Following the success of the novel in the nineteenth century,
there was quite a craze of publishing made-up wellerisms in the British and
American press. Some of them were reprinted again and again and took on
a life of their own as traditional wellerisms. But the genre was well established long before Dickens, and wellerisms have been recorded for centuries
in many languages. Here then are a few traditional texts that employ a
proverb in their first part:
“Business before pleasure,” as the man said when he kissed his wife before he went
out to make love to his neighbor’s.
“Much cry and sm’ wool,” as the barber said when he sheared the sow.
“All flesh is grass,” as the horse said when he bit a piece out of a man’s arm.
“Every evil is followed by some good,” as the man said when his wife died the day
after he became bankrupt.
“Every little bit helps,” as the old lady said when she pissed in the ocean to help
drown her husband.
“Silence gives consent,” as the man said when he kissed the dumb [mute] woman.
“Where there’s a will, there’s a way,” as the hog said when he rooted the back gate
off its hinges to come at the kitchen swill barrel.
“Everyone to his own taste,” as the farmer said when he kissed the cow.
“Tit for tat,” quoth the wife when she farted at the thunder.
“One good turn deserves another,” said the customer, as he padded the chorus
girls’ tights.
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Proverbs
But enough already. As can be seen from these examples and from many more
in Wolfgang Mieder’s and Stewart A. Kingsbury’s A Dictionary of Wellerisms
(1994), the traditional humor of wellerisms quite easily enters the sexual and
scatological spheres. Wellerisms are thus clear indications that solid proverbs
could serve as the start of some very basic humor. All of this is not to say that
there are no folk proverbs that contain imagery from the vulgar tongue. New
proverbs are still created along this line, as for example “If you got them by
the balls, their hearts and minds will follow,” “Opinions are like assholes—
everybody’s got one,” and “It’s better to be pissed off than pissed on.” And, of
course, there is also the American proverb “Shit happens” that started to appear on bumper stickers during the 1980s (see Doyle 1996). It is a succinct
text, it consists of a topic and a comment, it expresses a truth in metaphorical
language, and it has definitely gained currency among my students. But it can
also be heard among the older generation, leaving no doubt that it has become a bona fide proverb. It will be interesting to see whether paremiographers of the future will include the text in their proverb collections. Their
earlier colleagues have left most proverbs of this type out of their compilations, an unfortunate example of censorship in light of the fact that folk
proverbs do indeed contain elements of all aspects of life.
THE INTERNATIONAL TYPE SYSTEM OF PROVERBS
The organization of thousands of proverbs into a meaningful order presents major lexicographical challenges. Fortunately Matti Kuusi (1914–1998)
and subsequently his daughter Outi Lauhakangas have created an international classification system of proverbs that starts out with 13 main themes,
which for the most part represent basic aspects of human life:
A. Practical knowledge of nature
B. Faith and basic attitudes
C. Basic observations and socio-logic
D. The world and human life
E. Sense of proportion
F.
Concepts of morality
G. Social life
H. Social interaction
J.
Communication
Definition and Classification
17
K. Social position
L. Agreements and norms
M. Coping and learning
T.
Time and sense of time
Under the 13 main themes there are 52 main classes (from A1 to T4). The
main theme of “G Social life,” having 8 main classes, may serve as an example here:
G. Social life
G1 kinship
G2 development—a person’s background
G3 child : parents / upbringing
G4 man : woman / ranking and position of both sexes
G5 marriage
G6 youth : old age
G7 health : illness
G8 death / the dead
The 52 main classes are once again subdivided into 325 subgroups with different numbers of subgroups for each main class. Some subgroups register 7
or fewer proverb types, but there are also those subgroups that list 50 or more
types. Thus subgroup “G8g life from death” contains merely 6 proverb types,
while subgroup “G5e woman and man—the right moment of offer of marriage, norms, criteria of choosing (mostly by men)” offers 73 proverb types!
An example from subgroup G8g is the Japanese text “A candle, by consuming
itself, gives light to others,” and another example from subgroup G5e is the
English proverb “Never seemed a prison fair or a mistress foul.”
This obviously is a very complex classification system with the intent of establishing universals or archetypes of human thinking. Basing his studies on
a large comparative database of proverbs from basically every corner of the
world, Kuusi’s idea of a universal “proverb type” in the broadest sense of that
word “encompasses similar proverb types from different nations, presenting
them as a global type having a common idea. That is why we can speak of
universal proverb types if we wish to compare them to our local proverb titles
or proverb types in the narrowest sense of the word. [ . . . ] There are no standard models or patterns for a proverb type. In the Matti Kuusi type system
18
Proverbs
the concept of type is not very strict and it moves between a relatively abstract
proverb title [ . . . ] to a cluster of proverbs using different images but having
the same idea” (Lauhakangas 2001: 62–63; see Mieder 2001).
Since the death of Matti Kuusi in 1998, his daughter Outi Lauhakangas
has continued his fascinating and extremely important work, presenting a list
of over 700 “universal [proverb] types and their criteria” (Lauhakangas 2001:
125–158), which are in most cases more like clusters of proverb types, having
variants from four main cultural areas: European, African, Islamic, and Asiatic cultures. With the new classification system now finished, and with its inclusion of universal proverb types, international studies of an individual
proverb type can be carried out synchronically and diachronically as well as
contextually, semantically, functionally, and so on.
Let me give at least one example of the universal proverb types that can be
found under the main theme “C” (Basic observations and socio-logic) and its
main class “C6” (appearance : internal values). The subgroup “C6c” (everything is not as it appears; the deceptiveness of identifying marks [- -]) includes
the following universal types:
All that glitters is not gold.
All are not hunters that blow the horn.
There are more maids than Maukin and more men than Michael.
A wolf in sheep’s clothing.
All are good maids, but whence come the bad wives?
The classification system includes elaborate notations with incredible information and, above all, also cross-references to other proverb types. This takes
care of the problem of the at times somewhat subjective assignment of
proverbs to a certain position in the classification system.. And, to be sure, the
computerized database does (thank God!) permit a precise search by key
words (usually nouns) that will help to locate each and every proverb in the
system if one is not certain under what main theme, main class, and subgroup
it might have been registered by Matti Kuusi and Outi Lauhakangas.
Lauhakangas makes a number of honest and critical comments regarding
her father’s and her classification system, basically admitting to its somewhat
subjective nature:
It is obvious that the viewpoint or the aim of the interpreter has an effect on defining proverb texts as a proverb type. [ . . . ] The Matti Kuusi
international type system of proverbs represents only one solution to
Definition and Classification
19
the classification of proverbs—and not necessarily the best. It has primarily been an attempt to find a practical way to arrange a large collection of literature [i.e., proverbs found in collections] references. [ . . . ]
We can and we should say that the Matti Kuusi index is permanently
“under construction.” Consequently also the file of universal proverb
types is unfinished. (Lauhakangas 2001: 76)
This is the way it should be! Yes, the classification system might not be the
very best solution, but there is no better index at this time. And perhaps there
will never be another research team as that of Matti Kuusi and Outi
Lauhakangas who would be willing to even attempt to work out a practical
and international type system. It should gladly, enthusiastically, and thankfully be accepted and worked with by international scholars.
It is indeed an open system that will permanently be under construction,
and much work lies ahead for Outi Lauhakangas. Her father did indeed cast
his net very widely regarding the hundreds of proverb collections used in establishing the classification system. And yet, there are many older and above
all newer major proverb collections waiting to be included in the database. A
few comparative collections that must be integrated are: Jens Aage Stabell Bilgrav, 20,000 Proverbs and Their Equivalents in German, French, Swedish, Danish (1985), Henryk L. Cox, Spreekwoordenboek: Nederlands, Fries, Afrikaans,
Engels, Duits, Frans, Spaans, Latijn (2000), Harold V. Cordry, The Multicultural Dictionary of Proverbs (1997), Luis Iscla, English Proverbs and Their Near
Equivalents in Spanish, French, Italian and Latin (1995), and Emanuel
Strauss, Dictionary of European Proverbs (1994). Of utmost importance, especially for diachronic purposes, are the 13 volumes of Samuel Singer’s and Ricarda Liver’s Thesaurus proverbiorum medii aevi. Lexikon der Sprichwörter des
romanisch-germanischen Mittelalters (1995–2002). The numerous proverbs of
important bilingual and single-language collections that also need to be incorporated are among others those by John Lazarus, A Dictionary of Tamil
Proverbs (1894 [1991]), Peter Mertvago, The Comparative Russian-English
Dictionary of Russian Proverbs and Sayings (1995), Wolfgang Mieder, Stewart
A. Kingsbury, and Kelsie B. Harder, A Dictionary of American Proverbs
(1992), Ryszard Pachocinski, Proverbs of Africa (1996), Albert Scheven,
Swahili Proverbs (1981), Bartlett Jere Whiting, Modern Proverbs and Proverbial Sayings (1989), and Metin Yurtbasi, A Dictionary of Turkish Proverbs
(1993).
There is much work to be done, as Matti Kuusi knew and Outi Lauhakangas is only too aware of at this time. In the best of all worlds, Lauhakangas
should now continue with the “work in progress” of this truly unique inter-
20
Proverbs
national type system of proverbs. She knows its structure and intricacies the
best, and she can go on to expand the system in the most consistent way possible, both according to the ideas of her father as well as her own. This relates
not only to older proverbs but also to such new texts as for example “Hurry
up and wait,” “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure,” and “It’s the
thought that counts.” After all, the creation of new proverbs is not over, and it
behooves scholars to integrate them into the international classification system to see how such innovative texts fit into the universal type system.
Even if the work on this international type system of proverbs were to stop
completely at this time, paremiologists have a fantastic and beneficial research
tool at their disposal for serious comparative proverb scholarship. The work
must go on, but doubtlessly the International Type System of Proverbs with its
computer database will reign as the standard work in comparative paremiography and paremiology. Generations of scholars will benefit from this classification system as they continue to look for universal bits of human wisdom in
the form of proverbs.
TYPES OF INTERNATIONAL PROVERB COLLECTIONS
The International Type System of Proverbs just described is intended for serious comparative work by experts. But for most proverb research there are
numerous extremely useful multilingual proverb collections available that
simply list proverb equivalents. The preferred setup is to list the proverbs alphabetically by key word in the language of the compiler with the various foreign language equivalents registered underneath. The value of such
collections is clearly enhanced if they also contain key-word indices of the
proverbs in the target languages, making them accessible reference works especially for translators. While some collections do include sources and other
scholarly references (see for example Kuusi et al. 1985; Paczolay 1997), most
of these volumes on the market cite texts alone. They are dictionaries and
don’t claim to be more than that. A typical example is the entry for “Love is
blind” in Jerzy Gluski’s Proverbs: A Comparative Book of English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and Russian Proverbs with a Latin Appendix (1971):
En
Fr
De
It
El
Ru
Love is blind.*
L’amour est aveugle.
Die Liebe ist blind.
L’amore è ceco.
El amor es ciego
Liubov’ clepa.
(Gluski 1971: 159)
Definition and Classification
21
The asterisk after the English text indicates that a Latin version is listed in the
appendix as “Amor caecus.” As can be seen from the linguistically identical
foreign language texts, the Latin proverb was loan translated in its precise
wording. Since the proverb goes back to classical antiquity, it actually entered
many more languages that are included in those international proverb dictionaries that list additional foreign languages.
There is a second group of international proverb collections that has quite
another purpose. Their compilers simply want to indicate what proverbs exist
in other cultures about a certain theme. The proverbs are all cited in translation and the individual texts are not necessarily equivalents of each other.
Harold V. Cordry’s The Multicultural Dictionary of Proverbs (1997) offers a
good example for proverbs from different cultures about “possession”:
Possession
Better hold by a hair than draw by a tether. Scottish
Better to have than to wish. English
Blessed are those who possess. Latin
Everything goes to him who has nothing. French
Father’s having and mother’s having is not like having oneself. Chinese
Great possessions are great cares. American
So much as you have, so much are you sure of. Spanish
To each his own. Latin
Who has the hilt has the blade. Welsh
You can’t take it with you. American
(Cordry 1997: 204–205)
These examples represent only about a fourth of the proverbs listed under the
theme of “possession,” but it suffices to show that this type of classification
makes it possible to find various types of proverbs that express wisdom along
these lines without necessarily being equivalents of each other.
A third group of international dictionaries again registers hundreds of
proverbs from around the world in but one language, but this time each text
contains the same key word and the individual proverbs are arranged alphabetically. My own Encyclopedia of World Proverbs (1986) follows this particular classification system, as can be seen from this selection of examples under
the noun “life”:
Life
A good life defers wrinkles. Spanish
An ill life makes an ill end. Scottish
All of life is a struggle. Yiddish
22
Proverbs
Human life is like a candle. Albanian
Life is more fragile than the morning dew. Japanese
Living life is not like crossing a field. Russian
Long life has misery. English
The life of man is as spotted as a woodpecker’s coat. Latvian
There is life and death in the quiver. African (Ovambo)
When life is exhausted, death comes. Vietnamese
(Mieder 1986: 276–277)
And finally, there is a fourth group of international proverb collections that
just lists proverbs from different languages in groups of their own. Gerd de
Ley has arranged his International Dictionary of Proverbs (1998) in this fashion. He lists proverbs from 300 different nations and languages in English
translation, ranging from just a few proverbs to several pages of them per language. For Iraq he offers the following selection:
Iraq
A beautiful bride needs no dowry.
Tell me who your friends are, and I’ll tell you who you are.
One night of anarchy does more harm than a hundred years of tyranny.
Whoever writes a book, should be ready to accept criticism.
Stealing leads to poverty.
Sometimes you have to sacrifice your beard in order to save your head.
The poor are the silent of the land.
The day will wipe out all the promises of the night.
(Ley 1998: 192–193)
Unless a collection of this type has at least a comprehensive key-word index
of the proverbs, it is extremely difficult to find proverbs dealing with a particular subject among the various languages.
The many bilingual collections follow similar classification systems. The
proverbs are arranged either by key words or by general themes. The smaller
popular volumes do not contain indices, but the larger dictionaries provide
them so that proverbs in both languages can be located with ease. There are,
of course, literally hundreds of bilingual collections, once again being of particular use to translators and people acquiring a foreign language.
MAJOR ANGLO-AMERICAN PROVERB COLLECTIONS
Single-language proverb collections also follow two basic classification
systems, arranging the texts either by key words or by themes. There are
Definition and Classification
23
thousands of collections for the many languages of the world. To be sure,
hundreds of collections exist also for the English language, of which many
are intended for the popular market. This is especially the case for regional
or dialect collections, although they too can adhere to rigid scholarly standards by providing detailed linguistic and historical annotations (see bibliography).
Regarding the major scholarly English-language proverb collections, it can
be said with justifiable pride that the work by Anglo-American paremiographers has served as the model for serious historical proverb dictionaries in
other countries. As early as the 1920s, G.L. Apperson published his impressive English Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases: A Historical Dictionary (1929
[1969, 1993]), which was followed by William George Smith’s The Oxford
Dictionary of English Proverbs (1935 [1970, 3rd edition by F.P. Wilson]).
There is also Morris Palmer Tilley’s monumental A Dictionary of the Proverbs
in England in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (1950), and when
Bartlett Jere Whiting published his equally invaluable dictionary of Proverbs,
Sentences, and Proverbial Phrases from English Writings Mainly Before 1500
(1968), paremiographers had assembled historical references for English
proverbs ranging from the Middle Ages to the mid-twentieth century. In the
1950s the two friends Archer Taylor and Bartlett Jere Whiting decided to add
an American component to this historical survey by jointly assembling A Dictionary of American Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases, 1820–1880 (1958). And
then, while Taylor busied himself with other paremiological and folkloristic
projects, the avid reader Bartlett Jere Whiting came out with his important
volume of Early American Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases (1977). A dozen
years later Whiting completed the survey of American references for Englishlanguage proverbs with his large collection of Modern Proverbs and Proverbial
Sayings (1989). Three years later my co-editors Stewart A. Kingsbury and
Kelsie B. Harder and I added A Dictionary of American Proverbs (1992) to
these volumes. Our dictionary is based on thousands of proverbs and their
variants collected during 1945 to 1985 in the United States and parts of
Canada, thus giving a picture of the proverbs that were in fact in oral use.
Where possible, we provided historical references from the earlier volumes
mentioned here. But there are certainly many proverbs in this volume that
had not been registered before, taking Anglo-American paremiography a few
steps further as well. And finally, Gregory Titelman’s Dictionary of Popular
Proverbs & Sayings (1996) needs to be added to this list, since he includes
many historical references from the mass media of the twentieth century. It
should also be noted that these valuable dictionaries, with the exception of A
Dictionary of American Proverbs, also include proverbial expressions, proverbial comparisons, twin formulas, and at least some wellerisms.
24
Proverbs
Scholars or students seriously interested in the origin and history of an English-language proverb have thus incredible and unmatched resources at their
disposal. Assuming as an example that they wish to know the origin and dissemination of the proverb “A burnt child dreads the fire” in English (it was
loan translated into English and other languages from medieval Latin; see
Singer and Liver 1995–2002: II,93), they will find a truly impressive number
of historical references, albeit with some duplications:
Apperson 1929 (1969, 1993): 73: 7 references from the years 1300, 1400, 1580,
1616, 1725, 1760, 1820.
Smith 1935: no references, but in the 2nd edition of 1948: 70: 12 references from
the years 1300 (twice), 1350, 1400, 1450, 1470, 1546, 1553, 1580, 1592,
1670, 1837 (no change in the 3rd edition of 1970: 92).
Tilley 1950: 96: 17 references from the years 1515, 1536, 1540, 1552, 1566,
1578, 1598, 1614, 1616 (twice), 1639, 1659, 1666, 1668, 1670, 1721, 1732.
Whiting 1968: 81: 16 references from the years 1250, 1325, 1340, 1395, 1400
(twice), 1406, 1410, 1412, 1450 (twice), 1470 (twice), 1484, 1515, 1546.
Taylor and Whiting 1958: 68: 3 references from the years 1817, 1818, 1855.
Whiting 1977: 69–70: 13 references from the years 1755, 1775 (thrice), 1777,
1781, 1787 (twice), 1815 (twice), 1816, 1817, 1844.
Whiting 1989: 110–111: 9 references from the years 1913, 1919, 1922, 1935
(twice), 1950, 1957, 1968, 1975.
Mieder, Kingsbury, and Harder 1992: 95: 6 references of variants recorded in the
United States between 1945 and 1985.
Titelman 1996: 35: 5 references from the years 1250, 1546, 1755, 1913, 1984.
This is an imposing historical record of 88 references counting a few duplicates. The following citations represent some highlights, with names of authors in whose works they were located in parentheses:
1250:
1395:
1410:
1484:
1515:
1546:
1580:
Brend child fuir fordredeth. (Hendyng)
O! fy, for shame! they that han been brent, Allas! kan they nat flee the
fires heete? (Chaucer)
For brent child dredith fyer. (Lydgate)
Brent chylde fyre dredeth. (Caxton)
For children brent still after drede the fire. (Barclay)
And burnt childe fyre dredth. (Heywood)
A burnt childe dreadeth the fire. (Lyly)
Definition and Classification
1614:
1670:
1787:
1855:
1913:
1935:
1975:
25
Burnt child fire dreades. (Camden)
The burnt child dreads the fire. (Ray)
I hope and pray our own country may have wisdom sufficient to keep
herself out of the fire. I am sure she has been a sufficiently burnt child.
(John Adams)
It’s only the child that burns its fingers that dreads the fire. (Haliburton)
As a burnt child would recoil from fire. (Dreiser)
He’s a burnt child who dreads the fire. (Gardner)
A burnt child dreads the fire. (Russell)
Just these few examples suffice to show that as with all folklore, there are variants also of folk proverbs. In this case the wording “A burnt child dreads the
fire” has become the standard form. The main point is that the consulted nine
proverb dictionaries supplied this information in just the time it took to find
the proverb under discussion in them. And, to be sure, there are a number of
other helpful Anglo-American proverb collections to round out the results
(see Dent 1981 and 1984, Flavell 1993, Hazlitt 1869 [1969], Lean
1902–1904 [1969, 2000], Simpson 1982 [1998], etc.).
VARIOUS SPECIALIZED PROVERB COLLECTIONS
While the major proverb collections register as many proverbs as possible,
there exist also specialized proverb dictionaries for various subject matters, as for
example collections of regional proverbs, medical proverbs, weather proverbs,
anti-proverbs, and so on. They too are set up according to key words or themes,
and many of them are of a more popular nature. There is no need to list titles
here (see “Regional and Thematic Proverb Collections” in the bibliography),
but a few comments regarding their content and purpose are warranted.
It should be noted that it is extremely difficult to ascertain which proverbs
might belong to a particular region of the United States (see above all Hendrickson 1992–2000). The problem is even more vexing when scholars have
put forth proverb collections of particular states. Thus, when I published my
small popular book Talk Less and Say More: Vermont Proverbs (1986), I added
the following statement at the end of the introduction:
Some proverbs in this small collection like “Vermont has only two seasons—winter and the Fourth of July” or “It’s time to plant corn when
the icicles fall off the ledge on Snake Mountain” are obviously truly Vermont proverbs, but how about such proverbs as “Sap runs best after a
sharp frost,” “The world is your cow, but you have to do the milking,”
26
Proverbs
or “Every cider apple has a worm?” They sound like they originated in
Vermont, but why not in New Hampshire or New York? Only through
painstaking research of each individual proverb might the actual origin
come to light, but for many such texts the proof of a Vermont source
would be impossible. What is of importance is that many of the
proverbs in the present collection probably originated among Vermonters and that the rest are without doubt current in the state of Vermont.
Heeding these points, we can legitimately call the present collection
“Vermont Proverbs.” (Mieder 1986: 9)
What I was trying to say in this paragraph was that collections that indicate
in their title that they contain texts from a particular region or state always
imply the more general claim that they are known and used there, but that
they did not necessarily originate at that location. It follows that regional or
state collections are of considerably higher value if the proverbs were in fact
collected from oral sources.
Weather proverbs also present a problem since many of them are not really
bona fide proverbs in the scholarly interpretation of the proverb genre. While
normal folk proverbs can be used in multiple contexts, many weather
proverbs are prognostic signs and do not exhibit any metaphorical character
(see Arora 1991; Dundes 1984). Their major function is to predict the
weather. They are based on long observations of natural phenomena by people who couched their findings into proverbial form. Since weather proverbs
usually contain prognostic statements, they have also been called predictive
sayings, weather rules, and weather signs. Their intent is to establish a causal
or logical relationship between two natural events that will predict the
weather of the next hour, day, week, month, or even year. Little wonder that
many predictive sayings follow the basic structure of “If (When) A then B,”
as for example in “If it rains before seven, it will clear by eleven,” “When the
cat in February lies in the sun, she will again creep behind the stove in
March,” and “If the spring is cold and wet, then the autumn will be hot and
dry.” Some of these “proverbs” are in fact superstitions, as illustrated by
“When it rains and the sun shines, the devil is beating his grandmother.”
Matti Kuusi wrote a 420-page book on Regen bei Sonnenschein (1957) about
the many variants that exist around the world of this superstition couched in
proverbial language, to wit the following examples:
When it rains and the sun shines,
. . . foxes are on a marriage parade. (Japanese)
. . . the devil is getting married. (Bulgarian)
Definition and Classification
27
. . . the devil is beating his wife. (Hungarian)
. . . witches are doing their wash. (Polish)
. . . the gypsies are washing their children. (Finnish)
. . . a tailor is going to hell. (Danish)
. . . mushrooms are growing. (Russian)
. . . good weather is coming. (German)
. . . husband and wife are quarreling. (Vietnamese)
But there are also such proverbs as “Make hay while the sun shines,” “Every
cloud has a silver lining,” “Lightning never strikes twice in the same place,”
and “April showers bring May flowers” that can be used figuratively even
though they relate to some weather matters. In any case, not all of these
weather signs can be reduced to superstitions, and modern meteorologists
have gone to great lengths to prove some of the proverbial weather signs as
scientifically valid (see Brunt 1946; Mieder 1996b), including the wellknown predictive saying “Red sky at night, sailor’s delight; red sky in the
morning, sailor take warning.” In any case, the folk and the collectors usually
look at various weather expressions as proverbs (see Dunwoody 1883; Freier
1992; Garriott 1903 [1971]; Inwards 1898 [1994]; Lee 1976). Cognizant of
the problems with the so-called genre of “weather proverbs,” my co-editors
Stewart A. and Mildred E. Kingsbury and I chose the title Weather Wisdom:
Proverbs, Superstitions, and Signs (1996) for our annotated collection of over
four thousand such sayings that were recorded in North America during the
second half of the twentieth century.
While there are a number of major collections registering legal and medical proverbs in German, there are only some minor treatises of them with a
few examples in English (see Bond 1936; Elmquist 1934–1935; Mieder
1991). Already Jacob Grimm had shown much interest in rules of law
couched in proverbs, with the study of folk law being part of the curriculum
of folklore studies at German universities. It would certainly be desirable if
someone were to put together an English-language collection of such legal
proverbs as “Possession is nine (eleven) points of the law” (see Geise 1999),
“Finders, keepers,” “Ignorance of the law is no excuse,” “A man’s home is his
castle,” and “First come, first served.” The same holds true for medical
proverbs, as for example, “Stuff a cold and starve a fever” (see Gallacher
1942), “One hour’s sleep before midnight is worth three after,” “Never rub
your eye but with your elbow,” “An apple a day keeps the doctor away,” and
the more recent “When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras” (Dundes, Streiff, and Dundes 1999). The last proverb is a medical diagnostic
28
Proverbs
proverb, telling especially young physicians to look for the obvious first when
trying to determine the illness of a patient. Helmut Seidl has put together at
least a German-English comparative collection of medical proverbs with
many annotations with the title of Medizinische Sprichwörter im Englischen
und Deutschen (1982). There are also E.U.C. Ezejideaku’s paper on “Disability and the Disabled in Igbo Proverbs” (2003) and Yisa Kehinde Yusuf ’s and
Joyce T. Methangwane’s study on “Proverbs and HIV/AIDS” (2003) that
show how proverbs are used to describe and combat illnesses. Of course,
many other specialized collections could follow on other subjects. There are
plenty of small collections of proverbs on love, animals, plants, the sea, and so
on. There are also two major treatises with hundreds of proverbs about
women (see Kerschen 1998; Rittersbacher 2002), many of them unfortunately of a misogynist nature, to wit “A woman’s tongue wags like a lamb’s tail”
from the sixteenth century or “Diamonds are a girl’s best friend” of newer
twentieth-century vintage. Little wonder that feminists created the slogan
turned proverb “A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle” during the 1970s to combat such gender stereotyping.
Of late, paremiographers have also delighted in putting together collections
of so-called anti-proverbs, that is, parodied, twisted, or fractured proverbs that
reveal humorous or satirical speech play with traditional proverbial wisdom
(see Mieder and Litovkina 1999; Mieder 2003). For example, the proverb “A
fool and his money are soon parted” has resulted in such anti-proverbs as “A
fool and his father’s money are soon parted,” “A fool and his money are soon
popular,” “A fool and his money stabilize the economy,” “A fool and his wife
are soon parted,” “A married man and his money are soon parted,” “A widow
and her money are soon courted,” “If a fool and his money are soon parted,
why are there so many rich fools?,” and “There was a time when a fool and his
money were soon parted, but now it happens to everybody” (Mieder 2003:
33). As can be seen, anti-proverbs often follow the structure of the original
proverb while changing some of the individual words. At other times the wisdom of the proverb is put into question by adding a contradictory phrase beginning with the conjunction “but.” Of course, it is the juxtaposition of the
traditional proverb with the innovative anti-proverb that makes these puns so
effective. The anti-proverbs also indicate clearly that the structure and wording of proverbs are by no means sacrosanct. The fixity of proverbs is not as
rigid as it once was believed to be. Unintentional variants have always existed
in as much as proverbs are part of folklore, but intentional variations have also
been part of the use and function of proverbs, both oral and written. And yet,
more often than not proverbs are cited in their standard traditional form to
add some common sense to human communication.
Definition and Classification
29
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Collections and book-length studies are listed in the major bibliography at the
end of this book. Cross-references at the ends of entries correspond to collections
listed in the bibliography.
Arora, Shirley L. 1984. “The Perception of Proverbiality.” Proverbium 1: 1–38; also
in Mieder 1994: 3–29.
———. 1991. “Weather Proverbs: Some ‘Folk’ Views.” Proverbium 8: 1–17.
Baer, Florence E. 1983. “Wellerisms in The Pickwick Papers.” Folklore (London) 94:
173–183.
Barley, Nigel. 1974. “‘The Proverb’ and Related Problems of Genre-Definition.”
Proverbium, no. 23: 880–884.
Barrick, Mac E. 1979. “‘Better Red than Dead.’” American Notes & Queries 17: 143–44.
Blehr, Otto. 1973. “What is a Proverb?” Fabula 14: 243–246.
Bond, Donald F. 1936. “English Legal Proverbs.” Publications of the Modern Language Association 51: 921–935.
Brunt, D. 1946. “Meteorology and Weather Lore.” Folklore (London) 57: 66–74.
Burke, Kenneth. 1941. “Literature [i.e., proverbs] as Equipment for Living.” In The
Philosophy of Literary Form: Studies in Symbolic Action, by K. Burke, 253–262.
Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.
Doyle, Charles Clay. 1996. “On ‘New’ Proverbs and the Conservativeness of Proverb
Dictionaries.” Proverbium 13: 69–84; also in Mieder 2003: 85–98.
Dundes, Alan. 1975. “On the Structure of the Proverb.” Proverbium, no. 25:
961–973; also in Mieder and Dundes 1981 [1984]: 43–64.
———. 1984 (1989). “On Whether Weather ‘Proverbs’ are Proverbs.” Proverbium 1:
39–46; also in A. Dundes. Folklore Matters, 92–97. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press.
Dundes, Lauren, Michael D. Streiff, and Alan Dundes. 1999. “‘When You Hear
Hoofbeats, Think Horses, not Zebras’: A Folk Medical Diagnostic Proverb.”
Proverbium 16: 95–103; also in Mieder 2003: 99–107.
Elmquist, Russell A. 1934–1935. “English Medical Proverbs.” Modern Philology 32:
75–84.
Ezejideaku, E.U.C. 2003. “Disability and the Disabled in Igbo Proverbs.” Proverbium 20: 159–169.
Gallacher, Stuart A. 1942. “‘Stuff a Cold and Starve a Fever.’” Bulletin of the History
of Medicine 11: 576–581; also in Mieder and Dundes 1981 (1994): 211–217.
———. 1959. “Frauenlob’s Bits of Wisdom: Fruits of His Environment.” In Middle
Ages, Reformation, Volkskunde. Festschrift for John G. Kunstmann, no editor given,
45–58. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Geise, Nancy Magnuson. 1999. “‘Possession is Nine-Tenths of the Law’: History and
Meaning of a Legal Proverb.” Proverbium 16: 105–124.
Grzybek, Peter. 1987. “Foundations of Semiotic Proverb Study.” Proverbium 4:
39–85.
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Hasan-Rokem, Galit. 1990. “The Aesthetics of the Proverb: Dialogue of Discourses
from Genesis to Glasnost.” Proverbium 7: 105–116.
Honeck, Richard P., and Jeffrey Welge. 1997. “Creation of Proverbial Wisdom in the
Laboratory.” Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 26: 605–629; also in Mieder
2003: 205–230.
Kindstrand, Jan Fredrik. 1978. “The Greek Concept of Proverbs.” Eranos 76: 71–85;
also in Carnes 1988: 233–253.
Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara. 1973. “Toward a Theory of Proverb Meaning.”
Proverbium, no. 22: 821–827; also in Mieder and Dundes 1981 [1994]: 111–121.
Krikmann, Arvo. 1974a (1984). On Denotative Indefiniteness of Proverbs. Tallinn, Estonia: Academy of Sciences of the Estonian SST, Institute of Language and Literature; also in Proverbium 1: 47–91.
———. 1974b (1985). Some Additional Aspects of Semantic Indefiniteness of Proverbs.
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Definition and Classification
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Winick, Stephen D. 2003. “Intertextuality and Innovation in a Definition of the
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North American Proverb Studies (1990–2000), ed. by Wolfgang Mieder, 571–601.
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Yusuf, Yisa Kehinde, and Joyce T. Methangwane. 2003. “Proverbs and HIV/AIDS.”
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Q
Two
Examples and Texts
This section is once again divided into two major parts. The first consists of
six case studies to illustrate the ways of investigating the origin, history, meaning, and function of individual proverbs. The first case study looks at the classical proverb “Big fish eat little fish,” which exists in many languages and
continues to be very much used in English as well. The second study analyzes
the medieval legal proverb “First come, first served,” which had its origin in
the world of millers and farmers. Some additional proverbs and proverbial expressions are looked at as well to show how the miller profession gave rise to
them. The third study traces the path of the sixteenth-century German
proverb “Der Apfel fällt nicht weit vom Stamm” (The apple doesn’t fall far
from the tree) from Europe to the United States. The fourth study looks at
the American stereotypical proverb “The only good Indian is a dead Indian,”
also indicating that its basic structure has been used to create invectives
against other ethnic groups. The fifth study investigates the inherent ambiguity of the nineteenth-century American proverb “Good fences make good
neighbors,” showing its importance both on the personal and international
level. And finally, the sixth study brings to light how the twentieth-century
American proverb “A picture is worth a thousand words” is a clear expression
of the modern visually oriented age.
As the attached selected bibliography indicates, I have published major
studies on these six proverbs in previous years. They are up to 50 printed
pages in length and contain many more historical references as well as dozens
of notes and bibliographical details that cannot possibly be included here. I
am simply presenting significantly shortened versions without any references.
They are meant to tell intriguing stories, leaving the many pages of annotations to my previous publications where they can easily be found.
33
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Proverbs
The second part of this section presents a small florilegium of foreign,
American, regional, and ethnic proverbs. While it is not possible to include
large selections of proverbs in this book, several representative lists have been
assembled from various standard collections to let readers get a feeling for the
different metaphorical expressions of wisdom from various cultures and languages of the world. They are cited in English translation only, but it is no
problem to find them in their original languages in many of the bilingual
proverb collections listed in the bibliography at the end of this book. A small
collection of English-language proverbs that have been coined in the United
States is also provided. Two samples of proverbs in regional use in Vermont
and Texas (together with some Mexican American proverbs) are included as
well, and so are two sets of Native American and African American proverbs
to illustrate the unique proverb lore of these minorities. It was difficult to decide which linguistic groups should be represented. After much thought, I decided on African, Arabic, Chinese, German, Indian, Irish (Gaelic), Italian,
Japanese, Russian, Spanish (Mexican), and Yiddish proverbs because large
immigrant waves brought native speakers of these languages to the United
States over the years. Regarding various minorities, it seems appropriate to
cite examples from the meager number of recorded proverbs of the Native
Americans and from the rich proverb tradition of African Americans. There
is one caveat to keep in mind when reading through these lists. Again and
again attempts have been made to delineate a particular worldview or even
national character from lists of proverbs. This is a dangerous undertaking,
since such generalizations are often based on just a small number of texts (see
Robinson 1945; Nicolaisen 1994). The examples listed here are not intended
to say anything in particular about the nationalities or minorities under consideration. The proverbs are simply cited to indicate the wealth of different
metaphorical proverbs in the world. When the proverbial push comes to
shove, the wisdom expressed in proverbs is actually quite similar from culture
to culture. That is why so many proverbs have found a wide distribution beyond national borders and why there are so many equivalent proverbs that
might have different images and structures, but that mean the same thing!
“BIG FISH EAT LITTLE FISH”: A CLASSICAL PROVERB
ABOUT HUMAN NATURE
The proverb “Big fish eat little fish” is one of the oldest international
proverbs, whose origin can be traced back to the earliest written documents
of antiquity. The first recorded allusion to the proverb appears in the didactic
poem Works and Days by the Greek writer Hesiod of the eighth century B.C.:
Examples and Texts
35
“Fish and beasts of the wild and birds that fly in the air eat one another, since
justice has no dwelling among them.” What differentiates humans from this
unruly animal world is justice or a sound government, for without it anarchy
would rule supreme as one learns from the Sanskrit epic Mahabharata: “Men,
in days of old, in consequence of anarchy, met with destruction, devouring
one another like stronger fishes devouring the weaker ones in the water.”
Without the control of government the stronger or rich will prey on the
weaker or poor, and this fish-like behavior of the survival of the fittest will
prevail. The same thought is also expressed by the Hebrew prophet
Habakkuk in the Old Testament when he asks God “why dost thou look on
faithless men, and art silent when the wicked swallow up the man more righteous than he? For thou makest men like the fish of the sea, like crawling
things that have no ruler” (Hab. 1:13–14). The Babylonian Talmud from
about 450 B.C. includes the following explanation of this passage in the Abodah Zarah tractate: “Just as among fish of the sea, the greater swallow up the
smaller ones, so with men, were it not for fear of the government, men would
swallow each other alive.”
From these early textual references it becomes obvious that this fish
metaphor is part of a common tradition of the Indo-European people. The
step from a vivid metaphor about human nature to a precise metaphorical
proverb must have taken place once people wanted to express its basic meaning in a concise and repeatable way. By the time of Aristotle in the fourth century B.C. the actual proverb was well established, as can be seen from his
simple statement: “There is war between the larger and the lesser fishes: for
the big fishes prey on the little ones.” Once solidly established in the Greek
language, it was loan translated into Latin as well. The Roman scholar and
writer Varro, for example, employed the proverb in its social meaning with an
underlying moralistic tone in the first century B.C.: “Qui pote, plus urget, piscis ut saepe minutas magna comest” (He who is strongest, oppresses, as the
great fish often eats the lesser). Eventually the common Latin text became
“Piscem vorat maior minorem” (The larger fish eats the smaller fish), and it
survived in this standard form until the Latin of the Middle Ages.
In addition to the appearance of Greek and Latin references of the proverb
in secular literature and medieval Latin proverb collections, there was also a
considerable influence that the early church fathers had on the dissemination
of the proverb. St. Basil shows in his writings during the fourth century A.D.
that men act like fish primarily out of avarice or greed coupled with the lust
for power: “The greater number of the fishes devour one another and the
smaller among them is the food of the greater. And if it ever happens that one
which has overcome a lesser becomes the prey of a still greater, then both go
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Proverbs
into the belly of the last one.” And a few decades later, St. Augustine echoes
these sentiments as well: “The sea is said to be the world, bitter with salt,
tossed by tempests, where men through their perverse and evil lusts become
like the fishes devouring each other [ . . . ] and when one bigger fish has devoured a lesser, he is also devoured by a bigger still.”
Of importance for the appearance of the classical proverb in so many modern European languages is also the allusion to it in the Latin pseudo-scientific
bestiary Physiologus from around A.D. 200 that was translated into all major
European languages. In the tale concerning the whale it is pointed out that
“when he grows hungry he opens his mouth very wide and many a good fragrance comes out of his mouth. Tiny little fish, catching the scent, follow it
and gather together in the mouth of that huge whale, who closes his mouth
when it is full and swallows all those tiny fish.” In added religious comments
the whale is seen to be evil (the devil himself ), and he tricks the smaller fish
(the sinners) by his sweet breath (cunning) into his mouth (damnation or
death). Thus the fish appear to be swimming voluntarily into the beast’s
mouth since they are attracted by the sweet-smelling monster. Two splendid
illustrations from a Physiologus manuscript of the twelfth century show this
most clearly. In later illustrations right up to modern cartoons one can see
small fish entering the big fish’s mouth headfirst, which might be interpreted
as a sign of deception or “stupidity.” Other small fish will definitely be pursued by the big fish, symbolizing an involuntary capture by an aggressive and
stronger rival.
Realizing that this fish metaphor was known to people of the Middle Ages
through secular, patristic, and biblical literature as well as through the extremely popular Physiologus, it is not surprising that the Latin proverb “Piscem vorat maior mionorem” could catch on quickly in the vernacular
languages once it was used for translation purposes in the monastery schools.
The first English appearance of the proverb is in an old English homily on St.
Andrew from the twelfth century that first quotes the Latin text and then
adds the loan translation to it: “In mari piscem maiores deuorant minores.
Est—sone the more fishes in the se eten the lasse.” The religious writer of this
text also interprets the meaning of the proverb with a particular emphasis on
the dichotomy of rich and poor: “The greater fishes in the sea eat the smaller
and live on them. So in this world do the rich who are lords, destroy the poor
men who are underlings, and moreover live on them and obtain from their
labors all that they possess.” Two centuries later John Wycliffe repeats that “as
the greet fishes eeten the smale, so mighti riche men of this world deuouren
the pore.” John Lydgate cites the proverb repeatedly in his writings of the first
half of the fifteenth century, commenting explicitly on the oppression that
Examples and Texts
37
occurs among animals as well as humankind in A Disputation between a
Horse, a Sheepe and a Goose for Superioritie (1440):
Man, best, & fowle & fisshis been opressid
In ther natur bi female or bi male;
Of grettest fissh devourid been the smale.
Sixty years later Alexander Barclay addresses the conflict between rich and
poor in the chapter “Of ryches vnprofytable” in his Ship of Fools (1509), comparing the greed of the rich with the way the wolf eats sheep. This unfair behavior also brings to mind the “fish” proverb:
He that nought hathe, shall so alway byde pore
But he that ouer moche hath, yet shall haue more
The wolfe etis the shepe, the great fysshe the small.
And by 1578 the proverb appears as “The great fishe eateth the little” in John
Florio’s proverb collection Firste Fruites: which yeelde familiar speech, merie
Prouerbes, wittie Sentences, and golden sayings.
Having presented a somewhat superficial literary history of the proverb
well into the sixteenth century, it must also be mentioned that there exists a
parallel iconographic history of the proverb attesting to its currency and popularity. Two English misericords of the fifteenth century show a big fish
(whale) that swallows a smaller fish headfirst, bringing to mind the Physiologus tale and its illustrations. Later in the fifteenth century Hieronymus Bosch
illustrated the “Big fish eat little fish” motif repeatedly in small scenes of three
of his grotesque pictures. In the center panel of The Garden of Earthly Delights
(1500) he too has a large fish (whale) swallowing up a smaller one headfirst.
In context of the whole picture this scene signifies that the Epicurean small
fish (the sinner searching for earthly pleasures) will be damned and go to the
hell of the devil represented by the whale. At least as grotesque is another fish
scene that Bosch included in the left panel of his famous painting The Temptation of Saint Anthony (1500). Here the giant fish has grasshopper legs, a
church seems to ride on its back, and it even has a wheel in the form of a
shield (war) for propulsion. Since the beast is also swallowing a fish, this scene
might be referring to the devilish greed of the world, which includes the rapacity of the church and which will clearly lead to war, devastation, and anarchy. But a third scene in the right panel of Bosch’s The Hay Wain (1485) is
even more direct in its social satire. The entire picture illustrates the biblical
proverb “All flesh is grass” (Isa. 40:6; 1 Pet. 1:24), thereby showing the tran-
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Proverbs
sitory nature of life. Once again there is a fish-like monster, but this time it
has human legs and a man is being devoured headfirst.
The artist who continued Bosch’s satirical view of the world in the sixteenth century was Pieter Bruegel the Elder who included a simple realistic
scene of a big fish eating a little fish headfirst in his celebrated oil painting
Netherlandish Proverbs from 1559. An illustration of a stranded whale with a
fish in its mouth appears as a detail in Bruegel’s The Triumph of Death (c.
1562). Here death is the final winner as can be seen in some of the early English literary texts as well. But there is also a much more important and influential drawing by Pieter Bruegel executed in pen and gray ink in 1556 and
reproduced in 1557 as a mirror image copperplate engraving by Pieter van
der Heyden with the addition of Latin and Dutch captions: “Grandibvs exigvi svnt pisces piscibvs esca. Siet sone dit hebbe ick zeer langhe ghiweten dat
die groote bissen de clejne” (The small fish are eaten by the big fish. See son,
this I have known for a very long time, that the great [fish] bite the small).
The picture shows the world upside-down as can be seen immediately from
the soldier-like figure in the center, which is sawing open the large stranded
fish by holding the grotesque saw upside-down. Devouring of smaller fish is
Cited from Max J. Friedländer, Pieter Bruegel. Berlin: Propyläen Verlag, 1921,
plate 32.
Examples and Texts
39
going on everywhere, indicating that the world knows no law and order and
that anarchy rules supreme. The absolute chaos is also shown by the fact that
the fish are being swallowed with their heads first, sideways (an impossibility),
and tail first. It is a world of violence, threat, doom, and death. Everybody
wants to live, prosper, and exert power over the other, including even a fantastic fish-like monster flying through the skies with a gaping mouth. The oppressor who victimizes the small, weak, and poor becomes the victim, and
this unceasing chain reaction is splendidly illustrated in a small scene of the
right bottom corner, where a big fish has a smaller one by its tail which in
turn has clasped its jaws around a smaller fish yet.
The engraving from 1557 with its many reproductions was part of a popular satirical and didactic print media during the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, and it is well possible that William Shakespeare might have had one
of them in front of him when he wrote the following lines in Pericles (1608):
Third Fisherman: Master, I marvel how the fishes live in the sea?
First Fisherman: Why, as men do a-land,—the great ones eat up the little ones: I can compare our rich misers to nothing so
fitly as to a whale; he plays and tumbles, driving the
poor fry before him, and at last devours them all at a
mouthful: such whales have I heard all over the land,
who never leave gaping till they’ve swallowed the
whole parish, church, steeple, bells and all.
Pericles: [aside] How from the finny subject of the sea
These fishers tell th’ infirmities of men;
And from their watery empire recollect
All that may men approve or men detect!
(Pericles, act 2, scene 1)
But one need not look far to find literature and art joining forces in the emblematic publications of the early seventeenth century. The German Joachim
Camerarius presents a round emblem in 1604 showing a singular fish eating
a smaller one of its own kind. Another German emblem by Peter Isselburg
from 1617 again shows a sea monster devouring a fish headfirst, and there is
also an emblem from 1660 by the Spaniard Sebastián de Covarrubias Orozco
that depicts a giant fish once again swallowing up a smaller one headfirst. It is
little wonder that this motif gained such popularity in the seventeenth century. War, might, and oppression were rampant in Europe, and one is justified to look at these emblems as sociopolitical statements. They are satirical
caricatures of sorts without attacking any person in particular. The proverb
40
Proverbs
and its emblematic illustration permitted the artists to express their interpretations of the human condition in an indirect but still comprehensible fashion. Such indirect criticism of the politics of the day couched in the language
of natural phenomena most certainly was an effective way to vent frustrations
and to moralize and teach at the same time. This can be seen from an Italian
drawing from 1678 by Giuseppe Maria Mitelli, who illustrated the Italian
variant of the proverb “Il pesce grosso mangia il minuto” (The big fish eats
the little). Just as in the Bruegel drawing, an old man is teaching a young boy
about the nature of things. But while the fish in the emblems show the inevitability of their fate by swimming towards the monster, in this picture the
smaller fish try to swim away, that is, they try to flee from the stronger who is
temporarily hampered in its cruel ways by having caught a fish sideways. Too
much greed does have its trouble too, and even the big fish is not always absolutely successful in its evil schemes.
But the seventeenth century also provides the first American references of
the proverb. Roger Williams, the founder of Rhode Island, in his treatise on
The Blovdy Tenent, of Persecution, for Cause of Conscience, discussed in A Conference betweene Trvth and Peace (1644) presents an interpretation of the
proverb that goes right back to the prophet Habakkuk. He has “Truth” exclaim how good it would be if everybody were free from the persecutions of
the fish, who clearly represent a chaotic political situation:
Habacucks Fishes keep their constant bloody game of Persecutions in the
Worlds mighty Ocean; the greater taking, plundring, swallowing up the
lesser: O happy he whose portion is the God of Iacob! who hath nothing
to lose under the Sun, but hath a State, a House, an Inheritance, a Name,
a Crowne, a Life, past all the Plunderers, Ravishers, Murtherers reach and
furie!
Such political considerations are echoed some 50 years later in William Penn’s
Essay Towards the Present and Future Peace of Europe (1693), in which he outlines a sort of confederation among the national entities that might finally
bring an end to their strifes and wars: “The sovereignties are as they were, for
none of them have now any sovereignty over one another; and if this be called
a lessening of their power, it must be only because the great fish can no longer
eat up the little ones and that each sovereignty is equally defended from injuries and disabled from committing them.”
Almost a hundred years later, John Adams wrote in a letter of December
12, 1785, that he was distressed by avarice in the loan of money, somewhat
reminding readers today of the modern term “loan shark”: “While such In-
Examples and Texts
41
terest can be obtained, much Property will be diverted from Trade. But this
must have an End. The great Fish will have eaten all the little ones, and then
they must look out for other Prey.” His wife Abigail Adams, one of the
brightest women of revolutionary times in America, had already written to
her husband on November 27, 1775, in a more general sense that the nature
of humankind has barely evolved from that of the fish world:
I am more and more convinced that Man is a dangerous creature, and
that power whether vested in many or a few is ever grasping, and like
the grave cries give, give. The great fish swallow up the small, and he
who is most strenuous for the Rights of the people, when vested with
power, is as eager after the prerogatives of Government. You tell me of
degrees of perfection to which Humane Nature is capable of arriving,
and I believe it, but at the same time lament that our admiration should
arise from the scarcity of the instances.
This somewhat fatalistic view that the logic of the fish will always be here
continued into the nineteenth century and beyond. In a Thanksgiving Day
sermon preached in Boston on November 28, 1850, by the abolitionist
Theodore Parker, the proverb appears in an argument for morality, solid work
ethics, and a fair and just government to prevent the young American nation
from falling prey to stronger fish in the ocean of civilization: “Do you know
how empires find their end? Yes, the great States eat up the little. As with fish,
so with nations. Aye, but how do the great States come to an end? By their
own injustice, and no other cause. They would make unrighteousness their
law, and God wills not that it be so. Thus they fall; thus they die.”
It is exactly this nagging question of why life has to be like this that characterizes the many occurrences of the proverb in modern times. For the most
part its written or pictorial uses continue the fatalistic tradition that the bigger and stronger will always take advantage of the smaller and weaker. In an
alienating satirical text entitled If the Sharks Were Humans (1930) Bertolt
Brecht shows this by indirectly writing about Germany’s move toward National Socialism. He clearly states that sharks as humans would be much
worse than normal sharks since they would go about their destructive business of annihilating others in an ordered and carefully planned way: welfare,
education, politics, culture, and religion would all be structured so as to be in
absolute control of a few big fish. The entire society would consist of a carefully orchestrated process of creating small and meek fish that could easily be
controlled or devoured if they were to step out of line. Brecht wrote his apocalyptic text in the subjunctive, but history showed that Germany under Nazi
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Proverbs
rule lived by the logic of the fish, and the proverb, which is never directly
stated by Brecht, fits precisely a description of a dictatorship of fear, oppression, cruelty, and murder:
[ . . . ] If the sharks were humans, they would teach little fish how to swim
into the jaws of the sharks. [ . . . ] If the sharks were humans, they would
of course carry on wars with one another. [ . . . ] The theaters on the ocean’s
floor would show how courageous little fish would swim enthusiastically
into the jaws of the sharks, and the music would be so wonderful that the
little fish would rush dreamily into the jaws of the sharks. There would
also be a religion, if the sharks were humans. It would teach that the little
fish would only begin to live properly in the bellies of the sharks. Moreover, there would also be an end to equality of all the little fish if the
sharks were humans. Some of them would receive offices and would be
placed above others. Those who were a bit larger would even be allowed
to devour the smaller ones. That would of course be pleasant for the
sharks since they themselves would then get larger pieces to devour.
And how are things in the socio-political situation of the world today? Has
Brecht’s prophetic vision become obsolete? Judging by the appearance of literally dozens of illustrations of various interpretations of the proverb in caricatures, cartoons, and advertisements of the mass media, one certainly gets
the feeling that it is still very much a world of “Big fish eat little fish.”
References of such reinterpretations of the classical “fish” proverb can be
found in newspapers and magazines throughout the world. Some are extremely
satirical and cynical, others are full of irony or even humor, but such are the reactions of modern people who so much would like to break out of this endless
chain reaction of rapacity of all kinds. The pictorial representations of the
proverb in the mass media can basically be divided into five groups:
1. One large fish randomly pursuing several smaller ones who are trying to flee,
that is, the aggressor preys on the weaker. Involuntary takeovers (merger
mania) in the business world is a frequent motif.
2. A big fish planning to devour one small fish, making the aggressive nature of
the beast even more drastic. Again, the business world is depicted in this way,
when one large company swallows up a smaller one. The metaphor also fits political situations when a large country overpowers a smaller one.
3. A sequence of three or more fish trying to swallow each other, indicating
through this chain of successive incorporations the strategy of the survival of
Examples and Texts
43
the fittest. Spiraling inflation, the relationship of wages and prices, the class
struggle, and minority issues have been depicted by such fish chains.
4. A vicious circle of fish of the same size trying to devour each other, showing
perhaps the futility of this constant rapacity. Multiple takeover attempts by
equally strong companies have been illustrated by such circular fish groups.
5. The attempt of little fish ganging up on the larger fish, showing the importance
of solidarity and illustrating perhaps yet another classical proverb: “In union is
strength.” A number of cartoons show such “solidarity” fish, and there is also the
children’s book Swimmy (1963) by Leo Lionni, showing children that working
together might overcome any powerful opponent. The problem is that the “collective” fish turns into a large fish and dominates others once again.
In conclusion it can be stated that the fatalistic proverb “Big fish eat little fish”
contains wisdom that has been recognized in the world for many centuries
and that still holds true today. Even the symbolic inversion of this proverbial
law in some texts and illustrations seems only momentarily able to liberate
humankind from its basic and unfortunate truth about human nature. Everyone might wish that the proverb “Big fish eat little fish” would be rendered
obsolete, but that would assume that humankind has become more humane
at last. Judging by the recorded history of this proverb, which spans almost
three thousand years, nothing really has changed at all. Rapacity is as rampant
as ever, and although the large perpetrators might take on ever new shapes,
the metaphorical proverb “Big fish eat little fish” will always be a most fitting
description of this unfortunate situation.
“FIRST COME, FIRST SERVED”: A MEDIEVAL LEGAL
PROVERB FROM THE MILLERS
Proverbs from all nations contain much wisdom based on trades and occupations, and the venerable profession of milling is no exception. Mills driven
by water were in use during classical antiquity, and windmills have been
recorded since the very early Middle Ages. They clearly occupied a central role
in mercantile life for centuries, and because of their common appearance in
villages and cities, the folk began to generalize their observations and experiences relating to millers and their mills into colorful metaphors. There exist literally dozens of such proverbs, proverbial expressions, and proverbial
comparisons based on the milling trade in many languages and cultures. Although some of them date back to ancient times and even though the traditional life of millers and mills has basically been replaced by modern machines,
44
Proverbs
some of the proverbial wisdom remains in common use today. People use this
old formulaic language without necessarily understanding the precise meaning
of the metaphors dealing with the vanished water- or wind-driven mills and
their traditional millers. The old phrases have become linguistic relics of sorts,
and while many have indeed gone out of use, there are those that hang on and
that people of the modern age would not want to miss.
This certainly is the case with that ever present elliptic proverb “First come,
first served,” which belongs to one of the most popular proverbs today. But this
somewhat colorless piece of folk wisdom actually had its origin in the world of
milling, as can be seen from Geoffrey Chaucer’s longer version in his The Wife
of Bath’s Prologue (c. 1386): “Whoso that first to mille comth, first grynt” (389).
About one hundred years later the Paston Letters (c. 1475) contain the reference
“For who comyth fyrst to the mylle, fyrst must grynd.” But another hundred
years later Henry Porter in his Two Angry Women of Abington (1599) already
cites the truncated version “So, first come, first seru’d.” For the next three centuries the longer version referring to grinding at the mill continued to compete
with the shorter more general rule. From 1616 stems the variant “He that first
putteth his corne into the mill-hopper, is first served”; from 1659 the three variants “The first that brings in grist, let him grind,” “Who is first at the mill let
him grind,” and “First come to the mill first grinde”; and from 1666 “Who first
goes to the mill, first grindes.” Both the longer variants and the shortened
proverb “First come, first served” expressed the legal concept that whoever arrived first has the right to be taken care of first. But with mills disappearing
from the landscape, the longer proverb variants have by now vanished from
general parlance, and hardly anybody is aware anymore that the proverb “First
come, first served” is in fact a legal proverb based on the customary law of
grinding that person’s grain first who is first in line at the mill.
And it should be noted that this mill law is common throughout the European languages. It goes back to medieval Latin records, where the proverb
appears in various wordings. The following three medieval Latin variants
clearly indicate the legal nature of the old proverb by using such words as
right and rightfully (law and lawfully):
Qui capit ane molam, merito molit ante farinam. (Whoever arrives first at the
mill, rightfully grinds his flour first)
Ante de iure molit, molam qui prius adivit. (He by right grinds first, who first
came to the mill)
Iure, molendinum qui tardus adit, molet imum. (Rightfully he grinds last, who
came late to the mill)
Examples and Texts
45
But notice in two additional medieval Latin references how the legal implications of the proverb are not expressed as explicitly any longer:
Qui ad molendinum prior venit, prius molit. (Whoever comes to the mill first,
grinds first)
Qui cicius venerit, cicius molit. (Whoever comes earlier, grinds earlier)
When Erasmus of Rotterdam cited the proverb in Latin as “Qui primus
venerit, primus molet” (Whoever has come first, will grind first) in his Adagia (1500ff.), he also dropped the direct legal associations and any allusion to
a mill, thus making the proverb a more general behavioral rule. The many
translations of his Adagia proverb collection helped to spread this fascinating
proverb from language to language through the process of loan translations.
Interestingly enough, however, many European languages have maintained the proverb’s association with milling that has been lost in the truncated English version of “First come, first served.” For example:
French:
Italian:
Spanish:
Dutch:
Qui premier vient au moulin, premier doit mouldre. (Whoever comes
first to the mill, should grind first)
Chi prima giógne, prima macini. (Who arrives first, should grind first)
Quien primero viene, primero muele. (Who comes first, grinds first)
Die eerst ter molen comt sal eerst malen. (Who comes to the mill first,
shall grind first)
The Swedish scholar Sven Ek has even written an entire monograph on Den
som kommer först till kvarns—ett ordsprak och dess bakgrund (1964), treating
many variants of the Swedish proverb “Den som kommer först till kvarnen
far först mala” (Who comes first to the mill grinds first) and showing how the
proverb fits into the historical and cultural setting of grain mills.
The German dialect proverbs also very explicitly state “Wer zuerst auf der
Mühle ist, der kriegt auch zuerst gemahlen” (He who gets to the mill first,
gets his grain ground first). But while such texts from rural areas maintain the
mill metaphor as part of traditional life, the standard German version is less
explicit: “Wer zuerst kommt, mahlt zuerst” (He who comes first, grinds first).
Many young Germans have no idea what is meant by “first grinding,” since
they do not think of mills and grain. It is conceivable therefore that this German text might in time be changed to “Wer zuerst kommt, kommt zuerst
dran” (He who comes first, gets served first), thereby following the pattern of
the English history of this medieval legal proverb based on the miller profes-
46
Proverbs
Cited from Betty Fraser, First Things First. An Illustrated
Collection of Sayings Useful and Familiar for Children. New
York: Harper & Row, 1990, no page numbers.
sion. In any case, examples of the longer mill proverb can be found in many
Germanic and Romance languages today, but in English it has been lost and
has become a very general and barely metaphorical rule of conduct.
But while the proverb “First come, first served” is very much in use today,
there is a second early English proverb to be found in the prologue of Chaucer’s
Canterbury Tales (c. 1386) that has disappeared and is incomprehensible without
any historical and cultural explanation: “Wel coude he stelen corn and tollen
thries, / And yet he hadde a thombe of gold.” The “tollen thries” refers to the
miller who takes his toll three times, and the “thombe of gold” is an old jibe di-
Examples and Texts
47
rected against a merchant keeping his thumb on the scales when weighing something. The actual proverb is the ironic “An honest miller has a thumb of gold,”
meaning that millers always cheat. Here is the way Chaucer describes such a stereotypical miller in the “Prologue” to the Canterbury Tales around 1386:
The Miller
The miller was a stout churl, be it known,
Hardy and big of brawn and big of bone;
Which was well proved, for when he went on lam
At wrestling, never failed he of the ram [prize].
He was a chunky fellow, broad of build;
He’d heave a door from hinges if he willed,
Or break it through, by running, with his head.
His beard, as any sow or fox, was red,
And broad it was as if it were a spade.
Upon the coping of his nose he had
A wart, and thereon stood a tuft of hairs,
Red as the bristles in an old sow’s ears;
His nostrils they were black and very wide.
A sword and buckler bore he by his side.
His mouth was like a furnace door for size.
He was a jester and could poetize,
But mostly all of sin and ribaldries.
He could steal corn and full thrice charge his fees;
And yet he had a thumb of gold, begad.
A white coat and blue hood he wore, this lad.
A bagpipe he could blow well, be it known,
And with that same he brought us out of town.
(Prologue, 545–566)
This description reduces the miller to a Judas-like deceiver with his red beard,
black nostrils, furnace-like mouth and chunky as well as broad body frame.
And one might well ask why the miller and his honorable profession deserve
such a prejudicial characterization? For the most part it must have been a psychological reaction by customers who felt very much dependent on the
miller. They needed him to get their grain ground, and they wanted the most
meal and as quickly as possible from their grain. This placed them in the controlling hands of the miller. In fact, they were actually at his mercy, and they
projected their fears and anxieties of being controlled and perhaps cheated
upon this tradesman. The proverb “An honest miller has a thumb of gold” is
48
Proverbs
thus a bit of folkloric and behavioral indirection by farmers upon the millers,
but doubtlessly there were millers who did in fact cheat their customers as
best they could. Thus the proverb relates to problems of deception and mistrust among members of two very basic professions.
A short poem by Nicholas Breton from the year 1614 shows all of this
quite clearly, indicating one more time how the folk saw the role of the miller
whose broad thumb influenced the weight scales to his own advantage and to
the detriment of his customers:
I would I were a Myller and could grind
A hundred thousand bushels in an hour,
And ere my Master and my Dame had dinde
Be closely filching of a bag of flour. [ . . . ]
And yet I would not; least my Thumbes should be
Held all too great upon my towling-dish,
And such as did my secret cunning see,
Might curse and wish me many a bitter wish,
And say when they before the Mill-dore stand
The Miller’s thumbs as broade as half a hand.
That is a wonderfully satirical verse about human greed at the expense of the
miller profession. The final line includes the telling proverb that “The miller
has thumbs as broad as half a hand.” The implication is, of course, that he is
in fact quite a skillful manipulator of weight scales.
Perhaps the seventeenth-century proverb “The miller never got better
moulter [toll] than he took with his own hands” with the meaning of knowing how to help oneself is a bit more positive, but it seems to allude at taking
advantage of a situation as well. That certainly is the case with the proverb
“The meal came home short from the miller” as an expression of disappointed
expectations. Whether the expectations were justified or not, many a farmer
will have felt cheated by the miller when confronted by the small amount of
ground flour from the large quantity of grain originally supplied.
Such stereotypical expressions exist about other professions as well, notably against lawyers, physicians, and priests. But the invectives against
millers are quite numerous, perhaps because farmers who brought their grain
to the gristmill simply felt at the mercy of the miller’s (dis)honesty in providing them with the meal due them. Such proverbs as “Put a miller, a weaver,
and a tailor in a bag and shake them, the first that comes out will be a thief,”
“A miller is a thief,” “Many a miller, many a thief,” “Every miller draws water
to his own mill,” “Millers are the last to die of famine,” “A miller is never dry”
Examples and Texts
49
(is often intoxicated), and “The miller’s pigs are fat, but God knows whose
meal they ate” all reflect the questionable character of the miller in the eyes of
those who are dependent on him.
But then there is also the sixteenth-century proverb that states that “Much
water goes by the mill that the miller knows not of ” which William Shakespeare cited as “More water glideth by the mill / Than wots the miller of ”
(Titus Andronicus, II,1,85). This is not necessarily directed negatively against
the miller. The proverb simply states that one cannot pay attention or be
aware of everything, using the metaphor of the mill and its miller to describe
this fact through known facts. This is exactly the way Shakespeare employs
this metaphorical proverb. In the literary context of its appearance in Titus
Andronicus, it has absolutely nothing to do with a mill or a miller. Instead it
is Demetrius who uses the proverb to advise his brother Chiron, both sons of
the Queen of the Goths Tamora, that he can woo Lavinia, daughter of the
Roman general Titus Andronicus, even though there will be much upset
about his love among the feuding Goths and Romans:
Why mak’st thou it so strange?
She is a woman, therefore may be woo’d;
She is a woman, therefore may be won;
She is Lavinia, therefore must be lov’d.
What, man! more water glideth by the mill
Than wots the miller of; and easy it is
Of a cut loaf to steal a shive, we know.
Here the proverb functions simply as a bit of rationalization and positive persuasion to encourage the brother to pursue his amorous desires. Of course,
there is also a bit of misogyny in those sentences preceding the proverb with
its metaphorical message that Chiron should be able to win Lavinia in a clandestine fashion. After all, just as the miller does not know everything about
the water flowing by his mill, so the Romans don’t know everything that is
happening between the Goth Chiron and their own Lavinia. Shakespeare’s
use of the proverb in this context is a fine example of how proverbs express
messages in a metaphorical way without any reference to their actual and realistic wording.
Clearly the proverb “The miller grinds more men’s corn than one” is a positive statement that comments on his involvement and experience with many
parties, stressing that any particular person is not the only one to be considered. And the somewhat odd but still heard proverbial expressions “To put
out the miller’s eye” or “To drown the miller” are also not vicious attempts to
50
Proverbs
harm a dishonest miller. They are nothing but innocuous metaphorical
phrases referring to someone having added too much water to a recipe, especially one thickened with flour. A plausible explanation of the origin of the
first expression states that the “miller’s eye” refers to lumps of flour not fully
mixed into the batter or dough. In certain recipes such lumps are desirable,
but adding too much water can eliminate them, that is putting the miller’s
eyes out. The second expression with the same meaning simply alludes to the
fact that millers using water-wheels for power had little need for more water.
And proverbs about the mill itself? The proverb “The mill cannot grind with
the water that is past” with its earliest citation from 1616 is still well known
today and refers to missed opportunities. But the fifteenth-century proverb “A
mill that grinds not is worth as much as an oven that bakes not” is not known
anymore. Yet texts like “Enter the mill and you come out floury” and its longer
variant “If you don’t want flour on your happern [happin], you should keep out
of the mill” as well as “Mills won’t grind if you give them no water,” “Still waters turn no mills,” “Too much water drowned the miller,” and “No mill, no
meal” have all been recorded in use during the twentieth century in the United
States. Somewhat related to the last text are the proverbs “The mill gets (gains)
by going” and “The mill stands that wants [lacks] water,” meaning only an operating mill will get things done. These proverbs seem almost simplistic in their
wisdom. The same is true for the proverb “A little stream drives a light mill” if
one takes it only literally. In its metaphorical meaning the proverb alludes to the
general truth that small causes will have small effects.
There is also the ever popular proverb “The mill(s) of God grind(s)
slowly,” which in its Greek and Latin form was “The mills of the gods grind
slowly, but they grind small.” The proverb has been traced back to the Greek
philosopher Sextus Empiricus (c. A.D. 190), who is, however, quoting an earlier unknown poet. As is the case with hundreds of proverbs, this proverb
found its way into the vernacular languages. By 1640 it is registered in George
Herbert’s proverb collection Outlandish Proverbs (Jacula Prudentum) as
“God’s Mill grinds slow, but sure.” Here it is, of course, the singular God of
the monotheistic Christian religion. But the message is the same: justice is
often a slow process, but it is inevitable. There is also a small poem by the
German poet Friedrich von Logau called “Retribution” (1654), which Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow in 1870 rendered into English as follows:
Though the mills of God grind slowly,
yet they grind exceeding small;
Though with patience He stands
waiting, with exactness grinds he all.
Examples and Texts
51
Thus retribution may be delayed, but it is certain to overtake the wicked sinners. Here we have God (or the ancient gods) as the ultimate miller
metaphorically grinding up his imperfect children, that is, punishing them
for their sins. This interpretation can also be seen in a passage in A. White’s
Modern Jew (1899): “The capture and destruction of the Spanish fleet [ . . . ]
satisfied them that though the mills of God grind slowly the ruin of Spain was
an equitable adjustment of her debt to the Jews.” But the religious basis of
this punitive proverb has been lost to a large degree in modern times. In fact,
often “God” is simply replaced by the secularized notion of “justice” or such
banal terms as bureaucracy, administration, government, and so on. This can
be seen quite well from two references out of letters by George Bernard Shaw.
In 1896 he wrote: “How long the mills of the gods must grind you before
they grind exceeding small enough to become indeed ‘der Reine Thor’ [the
Pure Fool], I don’t know”; and in 1937 he returned to the proverb by changing it to: “You will find yourself in the grip of the Public trustee, whose mill
grinds quickly and grinds exceeding large.” But Shaw had also used the
proverb quite traditionally in his play Captain Brassbound’s Conversion from
1900. Here Sir Howard states: “‘The mills of the gods grind slowly,’ Mr.
Rankin; ‘but they grind exceeding small’.” Such varied uses of proverbs cited
in their traditional wording or altered in innovative ways show clearly the
adaptability of old proverbs to ever new contexts and situations.
There is also the proverbial expression “To be (bring) grist to one’s mill”
which has maintained its currency since the sixteenth century. Thus Winston
S. Churchill wrote in 1902 “all is grist that comes to my mill” and “It is all
grist to the Labour mill.” And in 1958 that masterful employer of proverbs
and proverbial expressions Harry S. Truman used the phrase effectively to deliver a Cold War slam at the Soviet Union:
The Soviet Union has hitherto refused to cooperate with the free nations on real disarmament or control of arms and has used every conference or international discussion on disarmament merely to further
her own design for conquest. In the face of past failures and even realizing the Russians still are seeking only further grist for their peace propaganda mills, while they arm for imperialistic purposes, we ought to put
the burden of proof on the Russians by answering them with a concrete
counter-proposal.
That is quite a jump from the mill of the miller to Russian peace propaganda
mills, but the message of directing the grist or the benefits to one’s own advantage comes through very clearly. The Truman reference is a splendid
52
Proverbs
example of how rhetorically apt politicians can in fact add metaphorical expressiveness to their speeches and writings, thus communicating effectively
and convincingly with the people who know the expressions in their traditional sense and who understand their innovative manipulations.
And then there is, of course, the well-known proverbial expression “To lay
a millstone on someone’s neck” and its variants “To be (carry) a millstone
around one’s neck” to refer to an especially heavy burden. The metaphor is
based on a biblical passage in which Jesus warns those who would dare to corrupt children: “But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe
in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and
that he were drowned in the depth of the sea” (Matt. 18:6).
One is reminded of a modern interpretation of this phrase in D.H.
Lawrence’s essay on “Democracy” (1917, published 1936): “Every individual
is born with a millstone of ideals around his neck, and, whether he knows it
or not, either spends his time trying to get his neck free or else he spends his
days decorating his millstone.” This is reminiscent of the proverbial comparison “To be like corn under a millstone” that refers metaphorically to life’s
often grievous oppression. And for individuals between millstone or with
millstones around their neck, it is only natural that the wish would appear
that their lives could at least at times be “As calm (placid, smooth, still) as a
millpond” without the noise of the ever turning waterwheel of that gristmill
of life.
What are the chances of survival of the proverbial language cited as examples in this short survey of metaphorical wisdom relating to millers and mills?
Some of them have already dropped out of general use, and their old and antiquated metaphors are in need of historical and cultural explanation in order
to be understood at all. But there are also those more common expressions that
will definitely continue to be effective images for a modern life that is becoming ever more devoid of traditional mills. The stereotypical expressions relating
to the miller are well to have disappeared, but people certainly will continue to
struggle with millstones around their necks, and they will insist that the millers
of the future will heed the old mill proverb “First come, first served.” Nobody
would want to miss that basic wisdom of fair social behavior.
“THE APPLE DOESN’T FALL FAR FROM THE TREE”: A
PROVERB’S WAY FROM GERMANY TO AMERICA
The earliest reference of the German proverb “Der Apfel fällt nicht weit
vom Baum” (The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree) is included in a 1554
sermon by the preacher Johann Mathesius. There are no earlier classical or
Examples and Texts
53
medieval Latin variants to be found, but the proverb itself is actually quite
well known throughout Europe, especially in countries neighboring Germany. None of these references from other languages predate the German
text, and it can be safely assumed that they are in fact later loan translations
from the German original, the Dutch equivalent “De appel valt niet verre van
den boom” having been recorded no earlier than 1788. With such an international dissemination of the proverb it should not be surprising that it also
made its way to the distant United States, but let me mention here as an aside
that it never really made it across the English Channel. For while the proverb
today competes successfully with such old English equivalents as “A chip of(f )
the old block” and “Like father (mother), like son (daughter)” in North America, it appears only rarely in British oral or written communication.
Turning first to English language references that have been found through
traditional historical research, it is interesting to note that it was Ralph Waldo
Emerson who included it in a small section listing nine “Proverbs” in one of
his Notebooks around 1830. While he cites it only in English translation, he
does attach the statement that it is a German proverb: “The apple does not
fall far from the stem. German.” It will probably never be known exactly
when and where Emerson came across this German proverb, but it must have
stuck in his mind, for in a letter of December 22, 1839, to his aunt Mary
Moody Emerson, he quotes it again in a slightly varied form together with an
introductory formula identifying it as a common saying: “[ . . . ], and as men
say the apple never falls far from the stem.” But even though Emerson does
not identify the proverb as being German any longer, this citation can hardly
be taken as proof that it had become generally accepted in nineteenth-century
American speech.
Americans most likely learned the German proverb from immigrants who
carried it with them to their new homeland. It should surprise no one that
W.J. Hoffman in his early article on the “Folk-Lore of the Pennsylvania Germans” (1889) recorded the proverb in dialect form with the following explanations: “Der apb’l falt net wait fum shtam. The apple does not fall far from
the trunk.—Equivalent to ‘a chip of the old block,’ when speaking of a child
taking after its father.” By the way Hoffman feels compelled to explain the
proverb to the readers of the Journal of American Folklore, it becomes evident
that the proverb was only in use among ethnic groups of German immigrants
in the nineteenth century. Edwin Fogel includes it again in German in his superb collection of Proverbs of the Pennsylvania Germans (1929), but in the
subsequent decades it was registered in English translation in regional collections from North Carolina, New York, Illinois, and Washington. By 1945 the
proverb must have been quite current throughout the United States as an En-
54
Proverbs
glish loan proverb from the German, for it was recorded numerous times by
field researchers from the mid-1940s to 1985. The Dictionary of American
Proverbs (1992) that is based on this major collecting exercise from oral
sources ascribes a general United States currency to it.
Checking through 18 German-English dictionaries dating from 1792 to
1990, it becomes clear that English and American lexicographers have struggled for many years to find the appropriate equivalent to the German
proverb, when at least by the 1950s if not earlier they could have cited the
loan translation that had become quite established in the United States at
least. But lexicography appears to be a rather conservative endeavor, and it
would behoove lexicographers to pay more attention to the impressive comparative research that phraseologists and paremiologists have been conducting for quite some time. As it is, it took until 1981 for the translated proverb
to appear in a foreign-language dictionary. The most common equivalent is
the English proverb “Like father, like son,” which dates back to at least the
early sixteenth century. It is interesting to note that none of the lexicographers ever cite the parallel proverb “Like mother, like daughter,” which has
been current in the English language as long as its male equivalent. The German proverb, of course, has no particular gender implication as such, but
Alan Dundes is probably correct in stating that the word “‘apple’ appears to
have somewhat of a male association in such a proverb as ‘Der Apfel fällt
nicht weit vom Baum’ [The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree] implying that
the son looks like or acts like the father, roughly equivalent to American idioms such as a ‘chip off the old block’ or ‘the spitten image’.” In any case, the
“bookish” references from published proverb collections and language dictionaries have not exactly established a convincing currency of the German
proverb as a loan translation in the Anglo-American language.
Alan Dundes was able to make available to me an impressive 73 references
of this proverb that were collected by his students at the University of California at Berkeley between 1964 and 1991. Since the student collectors also
include informants’ comments as to when, where, and from whom they
learned the proverb, these archival materials establish that the proverb was already known around the turn of the twentieth century. They also make clear
that immigrants like the Pennsylvania Germans brought the proverb with
them to America. In fact, 35 of the 73 references state that this is a German
proverb. But there are 12 informants who consider the proverb of Yiddish
origin, two informants each claim that it is Swedish or Russian, and one informant thinks it to be Irish. This should not be surprising since, as has been
shown, the proverb is well known throughout most of Europe. But much
more important and truly exciting is that the remaining 21 informants con-
Examples and Texts
55
sider this proverb to be American! The German proverb in English translation has become Americanized in the folk’s mind, and these invaluable
archival records help to establish this fact. What follows are some quotations
from these records to illustrate the importance and value of folklore archives
for the historical and geographical study of proverbs.
A reference that cites the proverb in the German language was collected
by a student on January 26, 1969, from Frieda Barkley, a retired GermanAmerican teacher from Benicia, California. One learns from the student collector that “Mrs. Barkley was born in North Dakota of German parents, both
of whom had emigrated from Leipzig to North Dakota c. 1880. The proverb
would be used to mean that, no matter how different a child thinks he is from
his parents, in reality he isn’t much different.” At the time of interviewing
Mrs. Barkley in 1969, she was 82 years old. Surely she had heard and learned
the proverb from her parents before the turn of the century, and this reference
is an indication of how immigrants maintain their proverbs within the family
setting where the native language continues to be spoken.
Another older German immigrant placed the proverb into an alarming
context in 1979 that, unfortunately, applies also to the present-day situation
in the reunified Germany. Being asked by the student collector to elaborate
on the meaning of the proverb, Gutrune Falckon said “that today there are
many young Nazis in Germany because their parents were Nazis and the
children were raised that way. In this way if something shows a great resemblance to its creator or predecessor one might say ‘The apple doesn’t fall far
from the tree.’ Just as the seeds from the apple will create another tree, the
children will become adults like their parents.”
The Folklore Archive at Berkeley does, however, also contain twelve citations of the proverb either in German or in English by Jewish immigrants,
who most likely also knew it in Yiddish, as can be seen from the following
comments by a student collector: “My informant learned the proverb ‘The
apple doesn’t fall far from the tree’ as she was growing up in Omaha, Nebraska. She believes she learned it from her mother, Sarah Beber, between the
ages of 10 or 15, circa 1929. This proverb is a Yiddish saying that was used by
everyone. Sarah Beber moved to the United States from Germany, and this
proverb was one of those that she had learned when she had been little.”
Many of the Jewish informants remember learning the proverb in Germany
before immigrating to the United States during the Nazi period. Just as other
German immigrants, they continued citing it in Yiddish or German in this
country, eventually also translating it into English when communicating with
people who knew only that language. There is no doubt that the Jewish population in America did play its part in spreading this proverb. It was well
56
Proverbs
established in Yiddish among the European Jews, as can be seen from its inclusion in Ignaz Bernstein’s famous collection Jüdische Sprichwörter und Redensarten (1908) as “Das epele gerut nuch dem schtam, das kind gerut nuch der
am” (The apple takes after the stem, and the child after the nurse) and “Das
epele falt nit weit fün’m bejmele” (The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree).
Even though the Folklore Archive at Berkeley contains no references by
Dutch immigrants, it must be mentioned here that they also brought the
proverb with them to the United States. This is made abundantly clear in a
letter to the editor of U.S. News & World Report (1987): “At last, we’re again
discussing what has long been folk wisdom! Though well into my 70s, I can
still hear my elders speaking their native Dutch about the accomplishments
and peccadilloes of neighbors and family: Ya, de appel valt niet ver van de
boom—Yes, the apple falls not far from the tree.” And there is also the reference in Peter De Vries’s novel Sauce for the Goose (1981): “He smiled fondly
at her again. ‘You know the old expression about heredity. The apple doesn’t
fall far from the tree.’ She knew it quite well, even its Old World version. ‘De
appel valt niet ver van de boom’.” The name of the author already tells of his
Dutch background, but it is also a fact that Peter De Vries was born in 1910
in Chicago as the son of Dutch immigrants who cited the proverb while he
was growing up in America.
The 21 informants who think of the proverb as being of American origin
prefer by far the standard variant “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
These references also show that by about 1950 the proverb had become quite
Americanized. But such invaluable archive materials don’t do anybody any
good if they are not being used or put together into valuable research tools.
Modern scholars might belittle the positivistic folklore collections of earlier
times, but they still need accessible texts, hopefully with contexts, to do serious historical and geographical work. It behooves folklorists from time to
time to publish new collections in order to show the modern use of proverbs
and other verbal folklore genres. The folklore archives contain not only texts
in contexts, they often also include invaluable interpretive comments by both
the informants and collectors. These are treasures that should be used, published, and interpreted, if folklore as a scholarly discipline wants to maintain
its credibility.
In the meantime, the modern computer offers diachronic research possibilities that can only be called the dream of any historically minded folklorist
let alone paremiologist. Computerized textual databases are constantly expanding, and one of the most useful on-line databases is LEXIS/NEXIS, offering full-text coverage for hundreds of legal [lexis] documents and also
extensive news [nexis] and business information resources. Included are
Examples and Texts
57
dozens of newspapers, magazines, wire services, newsletters, journals, reports,
broadcast transcripts, and so on. While the database goes back only to the end
of the 1970s, it is now constantly being expanded to become more and more
inclusive. Doing a “giant” search for a particular proverb is relatively simple.
In this case all that was necessary was to code the proverb “The apple doesn’t
fall far from the tree” into something like “apple /within 3 words of / fall
/within 3 words of/ tree.” The rest is a proverbial “piece of cake.” Within seconds the computer screen informs the scholar that the database contains 232
(!) references, and every one of them can be called onto the screen, displaying
in each case precise bibliographical information and a few lines with the
proverb in context. This short contextualized reference can then be printed
out at once, but one can also decide to print out the entire (wonder upon
wonders!) publication in which the proverb appears.
Obviously the miraculous world of computer searches of databases has its
problems and snags at times, but none of them negate their positive value. In the
case of the 232 references that were found for the triad of “apple/fall/tree,” a total
of 123 citations were useless. The most common “error” referred to statements
that dealt with Sir Isaac Newton discovering gravity by observing an apple falling
from a tree. Others were duplications of good references, but 109 references, or
about 50 percent of the total, hit the proverbial “bull’s eye.” The over 100 references from 1981 to 1992 have never before been registered by proverb scholars,
and they most certainly establish the modern American currency of this proverb.
Furthermore, there is not a single Anglo-American proverb collection that would
even come close to listing over a hundred references for any proverb. In fact, not
even all such collections could together come up with that number of citations
for a single proverb. Database searching for particular proverbs is truly revolutionizing paremiography as it has been known thus far.
Taking now a closer look at this wealth of materials, it should be of interest that 14 of the 109 proverb references are identified by so-called introductory formulas, at times being even referred to as “old” and as a traditional
piece of “Yankee wisdom.” How more American can anything possibly be?
Mention has already been made that the proverb appears to exhibit somewhat of a male association. This fact is certainly born out by the 45 contextualized references that clearly refer to a father and son relationship. A typical
use of the proverb in this meaning is the following excerpt from an article on
Pennsylvania politics:
The state is well into its second generation of moderate-to-leftish Republican leaders. Its gubernatorial candidate, Lt. Gov. William W.
Scranton III, 39, is the son of former governor William Scranton, a
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Proverbs
man who symbolized the species in the 1960s. This summer, the
younger Scranton is showing that in Pennsylvania, the apple does not
fall far from the tree.
The proverb is rarely used to refer to the relationship of mother and son,
probably because the physiognomic and physical similarities between them
might not be as striking as between two males. But the proverb does, of
course, also refer to character traits, and let me at least cite former President
Bill Clinton’s relationship with his mother as People magazine explained it
proverbially: “They say the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, and in the case
of America’s President-elect and his mother, the proverb holds. If you want to
know where Clinton first learned to use his head—not to mention where he
got his indomitable, take-a-licking-and-keep-on-ticking spirit—look no further than Virginia Clinton Kelley.”
As would be expected, references to mothers and daughters are more frequent, but the nine texts are a mere 20 percent of the 45 citations that deal
with fathers and sons. No immediate reason for this discrepancy comes to
mind, save that the proverb is in fact of a predominantly male orientation. A
rather negative reference can be found in Shirley Faessler’s short narrative The
Apple Doesn’t Fall Far from the Tree (1983): “She knows what she was doing.
Let’s talk straight. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. The mother was a
kurveh [whore] and so is the daughter.” Another quite nasty use of the proverb
appeared in connection with the relationship of Prince Charles and Camilla
Parker Bowles, an affair that has occupied tabloids throughout the world:
“The apple never falls far from the tree: Camilla’s great-grandmother was the
mistress of King Edward VII.” At least there is Goldie Hawn who described
her daughter Kate as having her “strong personality—the apple doesn’t fall far
from the tree.” And there is also that somewhat bittersweet love song “Apples
Don’t Fall Far from the Tree” (1973) written by John Durrell and performed
by Cher. Here the proverb takes on the role of a leitmotif, clearly indicating the
hereditary “truth” of this proverb for three related women:
When I was five
I’d put on mama’s high-heeled shoes and paint my face
And dance across the living room at Ruby’s place
Where the music was always playing,
Girls would laugh while the men were saying
Apples don’t fall far from the tree
Hey, Honey come sit on my knee
Examples and Texts
59
Apples don’t fall far from the tree
And I remember mama’s tears when they said in
a few years I’d be something to see
At seventeen,
I had me a diamond and a string of pearls
The men said they preferred me to the other girls
They took me to the best of places,
But I could read it on their faces
Apples don’t fall far from the tree
Hey, Honey come sit on my knee
Apples don’t fall far from the tree
And I remember mama’s tears when they said in
a few years I’d be something to see
Then my mama died
I made up my mind
To get on a Greyhound, get out of this town
And leave it all behind
But life goes on
A child of three smiles up at me, while she plays
The man I love has never heard of Ruby’s place
When he holds her with affection,
And he uses that old expression
Apples don’t fall far from the tree
Hey, Honey come sit on my knee
Apples don’t fall far from the tree
And I remember mama’s tears when they said in
a few years I’d be something to see
There are also seven references that cite the proverb as reflecting on the relationship of children with both their mother and father. After all, children are
usually a product of the traits and attitudes of both parents. No wonder that
Charles Gallagher published his small “pastoral and matrimonial” booklet on
Sexuality Is Heredity (1990) with the proverbial subtitle The Apple Doesn’t Fall
Far from the Tree. But it must also be said that this proverb does not always
refer to family relations either. This can be seen in an interesting article in
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Proverbs
Sports Illustrated from 1991 on the basketball superstar Michael Jordan. The
headline and subtitle read quite similarly “The Unlikeliest Homeboy: For all
his fame and fortune, Jordan is, at heart, just a Carolina kid called Mike.”
And the article itself starts with the statement: “Because the apple doesn’t fall
far from the tree, isn’t it possible that Michael Jordan is not some sort of glorious phenomenon but rather a simple, shining fragment of nature, grounded
in family and friends and roots from which he has never strayed? In a word,
yes. If the term homeboy wasn’t invented for him, surely it should have been.”
Thus the proverb identifies a great basketball player as having solid roots in
his social environment, something that neither national nor international
fame can ever take away.
And who will be surprised to see this proverb being used to refer to the
Apple Computer company and its steady stream of products, or should I say
its impressive “Apples” born on the parental tree? The LEXIS/NEXIS computer search yielded three headlines in magazines that employed the proverb
with the fruit being replaced by the company’s identical name. The proverb is
changed to state that the apples fall far from the tree, a shrewd advertising
trick or pun to indicate that new models of Apple computers are reaching
ever expanding markets.
There was a time when the doyen of proverb studies, Archer Taylor, stated
in the old Proverbium journal that one must not leave any stone unturned
when investigating the origin, history, and dissemination of a particular
proverb (see Taylor 1971). Taylor accomplished his numerous historical studies of individual proverbs by searching through proverb collections and literary works for references and variants. But just imagine if he had had such
folklore archives as the one at Berkeley at his disposal. Or even further, what
would Archer Taylor have thought of such databases as LEXIS/NEXIS? The
conclusion that all historical proverb dictionaries are sorely out of date is certainly justified. Much updating work is needed to register older as well as
newer references for at least the more important proverbs. The investigation
of individual proverbs has indeed become revolutionized by the electronic
age. Leaving no stone unturned in proverb searches now means even more
consultation of printed texts, the careful scrutiny of folklore archives based on
field research, and many fruitful hours scanning vast computerized databases.
“THE ONLY GOOD INDIAN IS A DEAD INDIAN”: A
SLANDEROUS PROVERBIAL STEREOTYPE
Although much is known about proverbial stereotypes among different nationalities and regions, and although numerous studies have been undertaken
Examples and Texts
61
to study verbal slurs against Jews and African Americans, especially in the
United States, there has been a definite dearth of interest in the proverbial invectives that have been hurled against the Native Americans ever since
Christopher Columbus and later explorers, settlers, and immigrants set foot
on the American continent. As people look at these slurs, it is becoming ever
more obvious that the native population suffered terribly in the name of expansion and progress. Native Americans were deprived of their homeland,
killed mercilessly or placed on reservations, where many continue their marginalized existence to the present day. The early concepts of the “good Indian”
or “noble savage” quickly were replaced by reducing the native inhabitants to
“wild savages” who were standing in the way of expansionism under the motto
of “manifest destiny.” Anybody resisting this policy was “bad,” and once the
popular white attitude was geared towards the demonization of the Native
Americans, the stage was set for killing thousands of them or driving the survivors onto inhuman reservations. The unpublished and little known dissertation by Priscilla Shames with the title The Long Hope: A Study of American
Indian Stereotypes in American Popular Fiction (1969) shows how this cruel
treatment of the native population is described in literature, while Dee Brown’s
best-selling book Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the
American West (1970) gives a more factual account. This latter book contains
a telling chapter with the gruesome proverbial title “The Only Good Indian Is
a Dead Indian,” the word “dead” meaning both literal death, and for those
who survived the mass killings, a figurative death, that is, a restricted life on
the reservation with little freedom to continue the traditional lifestyle.
It is alarming that this invective against Native Americans that became current on the frontier around 1850 is still in use today, astonishingly enough
both by the general population and the Native Americans themselves. Witness for example the book title The Only Good Indian: Essays by Canadian Indians (1970) that was chosen for a collection of short prose and poetic texts
in which these native inhabitants from Canada express their frustration with
their marginalized life in modern society. How bad must their plight be if the
editor, Waubageshig, decided to choose this invective against his own people
as a title! The explanation is given in the introduction as follows:
Police brutality, incompetent bureaucrats, legal incongruities, destructive education systems, racial discrimination, ignorant politicians who
are abetted by a country largely ignorant of its native population, are
conditions which Indians face daily. Yes, the only good Indian is still a
dead one. Not dead physically, but dead spiritually, mentally, economically and socially.
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Proverbs
Yes, this is Canada, but the same picture emerges for the United States in the
dissertation by folklorist Rayna Green. Herself a Native American, she chose
the title The Only Good Indian: The Image of the Indian in American Vernacular Culture (1973) for her voluminous and enlightening study. The proverbial
title sets the tone—here is a meticulous account of the “popular” view of Native Americans as expressed by the American population of all age groups, all
social classes, and all regions. The result is a shocking stereotypical image that
permeates all modes of expression, of which linguistic examples are only a
small part. There can be no doubt about the sad fact that Native Americans
were declared proverbially dead by the middle of the nineteenth century, especially after the end of the American Civil War, when United States soldiers
joined bigoted frontier settlers in a mercilessly carried out campaign to kill off
the native population of this giant land.
Such willfully planned and ruthlessly executed destruction of the Native
Americans needed its battle slogan, a ready-made catchphrase that could
help the perpetrators to justify the inhuman treatment of their victims. The
proverb that gained currency at that time and that can still be heard today
is the mindless and absurd American proverb “The only good Indian is a
dead Indian.” It was indeed a devilish stroke of genius that created this dangerous slur. Its poly-semanticity is grotesque to say the least. On the one
hand, it is a proverbial slogan that justifies the actual mass slaughter of Indians by the soldiers. But it also states on a more figurative level that Indians can only be “good” persons if they become Christians and take on the
civilized ways of their white oppressors. Then they might be “good,” but as
far as their native Indian culture is concerned they would in fact be dead.
Be it by physical or spiritual death, Native Americans were doomed victims
of perpetrators who acted with manifest destiny on their side while socalled innocent bystanders did nothing to prevent the holocaust of the Native Americans.
The time was ripe for this all-encompassing and all-telling proverb, but
whence did it come? Who coined the invective “The only good Indian is a
dead Indian,” which, unfortunately, fit the stereotypical worldview of threequarters of the population of the United States in the late nineteenth century?
Although most lexicographers attribute it to a remark allegedly made by General Philip Sheridan in 1869, the terminus a quo for this slur can be found in
The Congressional Globe: Containing the Debates and Proceedings of the Second
Session [of the] Fortieth Congress (1868). During a debate on an “Indian Appropriation Bill” that took place on May 28, 1868, in the House of Representatives, James Michael Cavanaugh from Montana uttered the following
despicable words:
Examples and Texts
63
I will say that I like an Indian better dead than living. I have never in my
life seen a good Indian (and I have seen thousands) except when I have
seen a dead Indian. I believe in the policy that exterminates the Indians,
drives them outside the boundaries of civilization, because you cannot
civilize them.
The sentence “I have never in my life seen a good Indian except when I have
seen a dead Indian” is, of course, a mere prose utterance that lacks many of
the poetic and formal markers of traditional proverbs save for its parallel
structure. Yet it is easily noticeable that this subjective sentence contains the
clear possibility of becoming shortened into the much more proverbial formula “A good Indian is a dead Indian.”
Indians and death were tragically connected in the frontier worldview, and
it should not be surprising that United States soldiers and their officers shared
this negative view. Major William Shepherd described the general stereotype
in his book Prairie Experiences (1884) as follows: “On the frontier a good Indian means a ‘dead Indian.’ The Indian must go, is going, and will soon be
gone. It is his luck.”
While the early variants cited thus far do not associate any particular person with having coined them, such an ascription was in fact started by Edward Ellis in his book The History of Our Country: From the Discovery of
America to the Present Time (1895). Entitling a short paragraph with “Sheridan’s Bon Mot,” Ellis relates the following event from an eyewitness account
of Captain Charles Nordstrom:
It was in January, 1869, in camp at old Fort Cobb, Indian Territory,
now Oklahoma, shortly after Custer’s fight with Black-Kettle’s band of
Cheyennes. Old Toch-a-way (Turtle Dove), a chief of the Comanches,
on being presented to Philip Sheridan, desired to impress the General in
his favor, and striking himself a resounding blow on the breast, he managed to say: “Me, Toch-a-way; me good Injun.” A quizzical smile lit up
the General’s face as he set those standing by in a roar by saying: “The
only good Indians I ever saw were dead.”
This anecdotal paragraph with its author’s obvious delight in telling the gruesomely “humorous” event appears of questionable authenticity at first. It is, of
course, understandable that General Philip Sheridan (1831–1888) repeatedly
denied having made such a statement, but there is no doubt that Sheridan
was known as a bigot and Indian hater, as the historian Paul Andrew Hutton
has shown in a chapter of his book on Phil Sheridan and His Army (1985) so
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Proverbs
appropriately called “Forming Military Indian Policy: ‘The Only Good Indian Is a Dead Indian’.” It is of interest, however, that Hutton does not quote
Sheridan’s statement “The only good Indians I ever saw were dead” but rather
its more generalized and more powerful proverbial form “The only good Indian is a dead Indian,” which became synonymous with the Indian policy of
Sheridan and most other generals and soldiers. As Stephen Ambrose puts it so
clearly in his account of the parallel lives of the two American warriors Crazy
Horse and Custer (1975): “Frontier posts reverberated with tough talk about
what would be done to the Indians, once caught, and it became an article of
faith among the Army officers that ‘you could not trust an Indian.’ Sheridan’s
famous remark, ‘The only good Indian I ever saw was dead,’ was often and
gleefully quoted.” Naturally Sheridan has had his defenders who have tried to
disclaim his having coined this proverb, and they are technically correct, for
it will probably never be known whether the proverb developed from Sheridan’s statement or whether his ill-conceived utterance was a subjective reformulation of the proverb already in currency. It must be remembered that
James Michael Cavanaugh from Montana had expressed a quite similar sentence already in 1868 in the United States House of Representatives, and nobody is claiming that he originated this frontier proverb.
If it was not General Philip Sheridan who coined the proverb in its present
form, it was certainly also not an even more famous, or rather infamous, Indian fighter who made the following incredible remarks during a speech in
January of 1886 in New York:
I suppose I should be ashamed to say that I take the Western view of the
Indian. I don’t go so far as to think that the only good Indians are dead
Indians, but I believe nine out of every ten are, and I shouldn’t like to
inquire too closely into the case of the tenth. The most vicious cowboy
has more moral principle than the average Indian. Reckless, revengeful,
fiendishly cruel, they rob and murder, not the cowboys, who can take
care of themselves, but the defenseless, lone settlers on the plains.
The person who spoke this incredulous passage was that “rough rider” who
published his racist and expansionist views and an account of his exploits on
the American frontier in his acclaimed book The Winning of the West
(1889)—no one less than Theodore Roosevelt himself, who became President of the United States five years after delivering these hateful comments!
Just as this proverb persists in oral communication, so it also permeates
written sources from scholarly books to novels, from magazines to newspapers, and even on to cartoons. In Mary Rinehart’s detective novel The Circu-
Examples and Texts
65
lar Staircase (1908), for example, one finds the grotesque double statement:
“Just as the only good Indian is a dead Indian, so the only safe defaulter is a
dead defaulter.” While the proverb actually serves only to introduce a characterization of a male person obsessed with money, it nevertheless is used to describe this man’s dishonesty by comparing him to the stereotypical devious
Indian. This early reference also shows already what is to become a pattern in
more modern uses of the proverb. Often it is not even cited, but rather it is
reduced to the formula “The only good X is a dead X,” giving its speaker or
author a ready-made proverbial slogan with all the negative and prejudicial
connotations of its original proverbial form.
It is interesting to see how this proverbial formula has been utilized as a slogan against the German enemy in particular during the two world wars, as
indicated by the following references in various novels: “No good Fritzes but
dead ‘uns’” (1929), “The only good Germans were dead Germans” (1930),
and “There’s only one good Boche, and that’s a dead one” (1930). Such variants show, of course, also the regrettable internationalization of the slanderous proverb and its underlying proverbial formula.
Besides the German enemy there were, of course, also the Japanese soldiers
to contend with. It will surprise no one to learn that the proverb was adapted
to fit this menace as well, as Richard Butler documents in his novel A BloodRed Sun at Noon (1980): “‘Ye believe all the propaganda our side have stuffed
into your head—things like bishops blessing the flag and telling you God’s on
our side, not theirs. Generals telling you that the only good Jap is a dead Jap’.”
In the late 1960s there also circulated the anti-Vietnamese variant “The only
good gook is a dead gook.” Yet another “national” variant of the proverb appears in a book on early Spanish conquests in South America, stating that the
native population doubtlessly thought of many of the intruders in terms of
“The only good Spaniard was a dead Spaniard.” And there was also the statement from 1992 in a German newspaper: “How was that in America? The
only good Indian is a dead Indian. How is that in the former Yugoslavia? The
only good Bosnian, Moslem, Christian, Croatian is . . . ” There is clearly no
end to applying this powerful slogan against any enemy as a propagandistic
tool. Its adaptability as a national stereotype is clearly without limit.
The same is true for some of the following trivializations of the original
proverbial invective. Some of them might even seem “humorous” in their absurdity, but it must not be forgotten that the actual proverb of “The only
good Indian is a dead Indian” is subconsciously juxtaposed to these seemingly
harmless variations, thus continuing the slur against Native Americans in a
camouflaged manner. In the following list it will be noticed that the texts are
usually built on the structure “The only good X is a dead X”:
66
1933:
1942:
1957:
1964:
1968:
1970:
1980:
1991:
1998:
Proverbs
The only good poacher is a dead poacher.
The only good teacher is a dead teacher.
The only good mouse is a dead mouse.
The only good raccoon was a dead one.
The only good cop (pig) is a dead cop (pig).
The only good snake was a dead snake.
The only good cow’s a dead cow.
The only good priest [is a dead priest].
A good vacuum is a dead vacuum.
As can be readily seen from these variants, they express to a large degree anxieties of people about such things as murders (in detective novels) or animals
such as raccoons, snakes, and mice. It might be worthwhile to cite at least the
“mouse” variant in its literary context. Paul Gallico in his novel Thomasina
(1957) describes in many pages the art of “mousehole watching” that is being
practiced by one of his characters for whom this is “a full-time job”:
It isn’t catching mice, mind you, that is the most necessary. Anyone can
catch a mouse; it is no trick at all; it is putting them off and keeping
them down [by locating the mousehole(s)] that is important. You will
hear sayings like—“The only good mouse is a dead mouse,” but that is
only half of it. The only good mouse is the mouse that isn’t there at all.
What you must do if you are at all principled about your work, is to
conduct a war of nerves on the creatures. This calls for both time, energy and a good deal of cleverness which I wouldn’t begrudge if I wasn’t
expected to do so many other things besides.
Sure, this is a bit of humor perhaps, especially if one continues to read another two pages of this seemingly futile exercise, but the careful reader might
Cited from The Burlington Free Press (August 16, 1998), comic section.
Examples and Texts
67
have a rude awakening when the “mouse” variant of the traditional proverb
brings to mind the fate of the Native Americans being hunted down by superior weapons and strength just like a defenseless little mouse. Behind the animalistic trivialization of the slanderous proverb hovers inescapably the
historical truth of human extermination.
The step from a mouse to scorning another racial minority besides Native
Americans is far too quickly taken, as is documented in Joseph Carr’s novel
The Man with Bated Breath (1934). There a prejudiced white man from the
southern United States makes the following comment about an African
American servant named Jesse: “‘That is one of the houseboys. Honest
enough if you discount the saying in these parts that the only honest nigger is
a dead nigger.’” That this proverb about Native Americans has, in fact, been
easily transferred to African Americans is documented in George Bernard
Shaw’s compelling introduction to his drama On the Rocks (1934). With Nazi
Germany on the rise, he prophetically writes about Germany’s plans of racial
purity and Jewish extirpation in a section entitled “Present Exterminations”:
The extermination of what the exterminators call inferior races is as old
as history. “Stone dead hath no fellow” said Cromwell when he tried to
exterminate the Irish. “The only good nigger is a dead nigger” say the
Americans of the Ku-Klux temperament. “Hates any man the thing he
would not kill?” said Shylock naively. But we white men, as we absurdly
call ourselves in spite of the testimony of our looking glasses, regard all
differently colored folk as inferior species.
Shaw in 1934 even draws attention already to the fact that racial fanatics
refer to undesirable people as “vermin,” thus robbing them of their basic
human dignity. The Nazis did exactly that as time went on, degrading in
particular the Jewish population with verbal and proverbial invectives to
“vermin.” In light of what happened in Germany and Europe under National Socialism in the many concentration camps, and in consideration of
the harm done to Native Americans and African Americans or any other minority, any variant of the proverb “The only good Indian is a dead Indian”
seems unacceptable.
In the meantime the proverb as a direct slur against the Native Americans
continues to be in use, an ever ready invective to be cited to keep the painful
stereotype alive. In John Buchan’s frontier novel Salute to Adventures (1915) a
young man is willing to give the native population the benefit of the doubt by
exclaiming: “‘But they tell me the Indians are changed nowadays. They say
they’ve settled down to peaceful ways like any Christian’.” But to this a more
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Proverbs
knowledgeable old-timer answers grimly and without any feeling of reconciliation or understanding about the plight of the original inhabitants of this
land: “‘Put your head into a catamount’s mouth, if you please, but never trust
an Indian. The only good kind is the dead kind. I tell you we’re living on the
edge of hell. It may come this year or next year or five years hence, but come
it will’.” Fear and hate combine to a point of accepting such blind judgments
and beliefs.
There is no end in sight as far as eradicating this proverb from common
parlance. Maxwell Bodenheim’s comment in his book on My Life and Loves
in Greenwich Village (1954) appears to be saying something like that: “There
is no good Indian but a dead Indian, we are told by the grandsons of men
who have been scalped,” that is, the image of the Indian savages will always
remain among us. The New Yorker magazine in 1957 even published a disgusting cartoon showing two frontiersmen and a Native American around a
campfire with one of them observing: “I say the only good Indian is a dead
Indian. Present company excepted, of course.” Is that so-called eastern intellectual sophistication or rather a sign that even the crème de la crème of this
society is not free of prejudice? Who then can be surprised to hear common
people making such generalizations as “That only went to show that the only
good Indian was a dead Indian” or “‘They’re the Indians—and the only good
Injun is a dead one, you can take that from me’.” And is it conceivable that
people actually compose jokes around this most hurtful slander against Native Americans, just as terribly sick minds have come up with Auschwitz
jokes? The cartoon in the New Yorker just mentioned is a small example of
this type of sick humor, but even more upsetting is a short story by Mack
Reynolds with the suspect title Good Indian (1964). In its mere nine pages the
author describes three Indians coming to sign a treaty. The director of the Department of Indian Affairs gets them intoxicated and cheats them out of their
land. Gleefully he tells his secretary the next morning:
“Miss Fullbright haven’t you ever heard the old proverb The only good
Indian is a dead —”
Millie’s hand went to her mouth. “Mr. Dowling, you mean . . . you
put the slug on all three of those poor Seminoles? But . . . but how about
the remaining fifty-five of them. You can’t possibly kill them all!”
“Let me finish,” Dowling growled. “I was about to say, The only good
Indian is a dead drunk Indian. If you think I’m hanging over, you should
see Charlie Horse and his pals. Those redskins couldn’t handle firewater
back in the old days when the Dutch did them out of Manhattan with
a handful of beads and a gallon of applejack and they still can’t.”
Examples and Texts
69
The joke centers around the proverb “The only good Indian is a dead Indian,” but the author does not only base his short story on this terrible stereotype, he also alludes, of course, to the other proverbial invective of being
“drunker than an Indian.” This is a tasteless, despicable, and racially motivated joke at the expense of Native Americans, and it shows the tenacity of
proverbial stereotypes in today’s United States of America.
Far too long has this proverb given justification to the literal and spiritual
killing of Native Americans. In its poetic brevity is expressed the national
shame of a people whose majority succumbed to the worldview that Native
Americans had to give up their identity or be killed. The fact that this tiny
piece of folk wisdom is still current today is a very sad comment on this society and its behavior towards Native Americans. As long as there remain prejudices and stereotypes about this minority population, the proverb will not
cease to exist. Wherever it will be uttered or written, it will expose blatant inhumanity towards the Native Americans. The conscious attempt to refrain
from using the proverb “The only good Indian is a dead Indian” might at
least help to bring about some changes towards a better life for Native Americans, one of pride and dignity as is befitting for the indigenous people of this
great country—better the proverb die a long overdue death than any Native
American get hurt by it anymore.
“GOOD FENCES MAKE GOOD NEIGHBORS”: AN
AMBIGUOUS PROVERB OF RELATIONSHIPS
There is an inherent ambiguity in the proverb “Good fences make good
neighbors” that stems from the fact that its metaphor contains both the phenomenon of fencing someone or something in while at the same time fencing
the person or thing out. This being the case, it is only natural to ask such
questions as: When and why do good fences make good neighbors?, When
and why should we build a fence or wall in the first place?, and When and
why should we tear such a structure down? In other words, the proverb contains within itself the tension between boundary and openness, between demarcation and common space, between individuality and collectivity, and
between many other conflicting attitudes that separate people from each
other, be it as neighbors in a village or city or as nations on the international
scene. Much is at stake when it comes to erecting a fence or a wall, no matter
whether the structure is meant for protection or separation from the other, to
wit the Great Wall of China, the Berlin Wall, the walls that separate Americans from Mexicans or Israelis from Palestinians, and one individual neighbor
from another. What for heaven’s sake is the folk wisdom of the proverb
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Proverbs
“Good fences make good neighbors”? Should it not be the goal of humankind
to tear down fences and walls everywhere? How can anybody justify the erection or maintenance of barriers between people and neighbors?
People everywhere and at all times have seen the pros and cons of a fence
marking property lines and keeping people from infringing on each other’s
personal space. They have expressed their insights in various proverbs that are
actually quite similar to the basic idea of the proverb “Good fences make
good neighbors” that advocates some distance between neighbors: “There
must be a fence between good neighbors” (Norwegian), “Between neighbors’
gardens a fence is good” (German), “Build a fence even between intimate
friends” (Japanese), “Love your neighbor, but do not throw down the dividing
wall” (Indian [Hindi]), and “Love your neighbor, but put up a fence” (Russian). There are also two English proverbs that express the principal idea of
“Good fences make good neighbors,” albeit in different images and structures, namely “Love your neighbor, but don’t pull down your hedge” (1640)
and “A hedge between keeps friendship green” (1707). Folk wisdom states
again and again that some distance between neighbors might be a good idea
for the sake of privacy, as can also be seen in the late medieval Latin proverb
“Bonum est erigere dumos cum vicinis” (It is good to erect hedges with the
neighbors). While the two “hedge” proverbs express similar ideas as the
“fence” proverb, they certainly don’t have the same linguistic structure upon
which “Good fences make good neighbors” might have been constructed.
Such proverbs do exist, however, in the English language, to wit “Good beginning maketh [makes a] good ending,” “A good husband makes a good
wife,” “A good Jack makes a good Jill,” “Good masters make good servants,”
and “A good wife makes a good husband.” Any of these texts might well have
provided the structure and pattern for the “fence” proverb.
The origin of the American proverb might well be found in a passage of a letter that the Reverend Ezekiel Rogers of a settlement at Rowley, Massachusetts,
wrote to Governor John Winthrop on June 30, 1640: “Touching the businesse
of the Bounds, which we haue now in agitation; I haue thought, that a good
fence helpeth to keepe peace betweene neighbors; but let vs take heede that we
make not a high stone wall, to keepe vs from meeting.” Certainly this text connects fences and neighbors, but it is still a far cry from the “fence” proverb under
discussion. In fact, the next reference that comes at least close in commenting on
fences and neighbors and that might have a proverbial ring to it appeared in a
farmer’s almanac over 160 years later in 1804: “Look to your fences; and if your
neighbor neglects to repair and keep in order his half, do it yourself; you will get
your pay.” More to the proverbial point is the following statement in Hugh
Henry Brackenridge’s volume on Modern Chivalry (1815) that satirizes various
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aspects of social and political life in America. Reflecting on Thomas Jefferson as
President, he states: “I was always with him in his apprehensions of John Bull
[England]. Good fences restrain fencebreaking beasts, and preserve good neighborhoods.” This formulation from 1815 contains the twofold use of the adjective
“good” and approaches to a considerable degree the wording of the “fence”
proverb. The passage also already mirrors the political interpretation of the
proverb that has become quite prevalent in the modern mass media.
A fascinating variant, stressing the negative results of not keeping up one’s
fences, appeared 15 years later in The Vermont Anti-Masonic Almanac for
1831: “Poor fences make lean cattle and ill-natured neighbors.” This text is
cited as a piece of farm wisdom, and there is no reason to doubt its proverbiality, even though a few more references would be welcome. It basically is
the other side of the coin of the “fence” proverb, especially if one were to simply state “Poor fences make poor neighbors.”
It took another 20 years until the proverb “Good fences make good neighbors” finally appeared in print in that precise wording, for the first time in
Blum’s Farmer’s and Planter’s Almanac (North Carolina) for 1850 and a second time in the same almanac for the year 1861. The folklorist Addison
Barker, who made this invaluable discovery a hundred years later, published
it in a barely half-a-page note in the Journal of American Folklore with the
commentary that “It is possible that an early editor found ‘Good fences make
good neighbors’ in a New England almanac or farm journal. Or he may have
gleaned the proverb from oral currency” (1951).
The proverb was most likely in oral use in the first half of the nineteenth
century, for by 1859 it made it into the Transactions of the State Agricultural
Society of Michigan: “Good fences make good neighbors, and enable the
farmer when he retires to bed at night, to awake in the morning conscious
that his crops are secure, and that the labor of weeks are [sic] not destroyed in
an hour by his neighbor’s or his own stock.” This statement is a precise explanation of the basic meaning of this proverb, describing the need of good
fences on farm land, where the maintenance of the fence or wall depends on
responsible reciprocity among neighbors.
By April 3, 1885, the proverb found its way into the Home Advocate, a
newspaper published in Union Parish, Louisiana, and on June 16, 1901, finally, the proverb had its debut in an article on “Impressions of the New
South” by James C. Bayles in the New York Times: “If it be true that good
fences make good neighbors, the people of this part of the South must dwell
together in great amity.” The introductory formula “if it be true” can be understood as a marker indicating the common currency of the “fence” proverb
at the end of the nineteenth century.
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There is no doubt that the appearance of Robert Frost’s celebrated poem
“Mending Wall” in the year 1914 was of ultimate significance for the general
acceptance of the hitherto rather sporadically employed proverb “Good
fences make good neighbors.” The proverb, and about a third of the time
with reference to Frost’s use of it in “Mending Wall,” became a proverbial
“hit” as of the middle of the twentieth century. It owes this tremendous gain
in currency to the fascination with Frost’s paradoxical poem that helped to
zero in on the strikingly ambivalent interpretation possibility of its folk wisdom. Here then is the text of the poem with the twice repeated phrase that
“Something there is that doesn’t love a wall” and its juxtaposition to the
equally repeated proverb “Good fences make good neighbors”:
Mending Wall
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
‘Stay where you are until our backs are turned!’
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him
He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’
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73
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
‘Why do they make good neighbors? Isn’t it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.’ I could say ‘Elves’ to him,
But it’s not the elves exactly, and I’d rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father’s saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’
Clearly this is a dramatic dialogue with much irony added to it. The complex
meaning of the ambiguous poem can be summarized as follows: it is a poem
about boundaries, barriers, (in)determinacy, conventions, tradition, innovation, (dis)agreements, individuality, community, property, behavior, communication, knowledge, and folk wisdom, to be sure. It is generally agreed that
the speaker of the poem is not Robert Frost, who as the poet intended nothing more or less than to display the confrontation of two neighbors over the
maintenance of a wall that, to make things even more difficult, is not really
needed any longer for any pragmatic reasons. Commenting on this poem in
a letter of November 1, 1927, Frost states that he consciously employed his
“innate mischievousness” in setting up the argumentative dialogue “to trip
the reader head foremost into the boundless.”
On the one hand, the proverb quite literally seems to express the fact that
fences create social walls that prevent any type of communication. But are
things quite so simple with the meaning of the proverb? After all, it is not the
“old-stone savage” who initiates the rebuilding of the seemingly senseless wall
but rather the intellectually inclined speaker. In other words, perhaps the oldfashioned neighbor really is not such a stubborn blockhead after all. He does
in fact understand the meaning of the proverb quite differently from the
speaker. He sees the need of the fence to get along with his neighbor, that is,
it is a positive and not a negative barrier or wall. What makes the proverb so
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Proverbs
difficult to understand in both of its occurrences and different interpretations
by the two neighbors is that by its very nature it is a verbal form of indirection. The very fact that the message of the proverb is expressed indirectly
through a metaphor makes its dual interpretation possible. Whether the
proverb “Good fences make good neighbors” is looked at positively (valid) or
negatively (invalid) very much depends on what side of the fence one is on,
whether and what one intends to fence in or fence out, and whether any fence
is desirable or necessary in any given situation. Perhaps Robert Frost had
nothing else in mind when he wrote this poem but to show that proverbs are
verbal devices of mischievous indirection, reflecting by their ambiguous nature the perplexities of life itself. In fact, Frost is saying that the wisdom of the
proverb “Good fences make good neighbors” is in the eye of the beholder.
The argument of the neighbors over the (in)validity of the proverb continues
to the present day and will not cease to take place. And to be sure, the proverb
“Good fences make good neighbors” with its possible interpretations also implies the obverse claim that “Good neighbors make good fences.” As people
deal with forms of appropriate separation (personal space, property, territories, etc.), they do well to stress the need for social interaction and communication across the fence. The “fence” proverb, as it appears in Frost’s poem
“Mending Wall” (with the emphasis perhaps on mending!) and in oral and
written communication, is a perfect metaphor for what keeps people apart or
together. It is a folkloristic sign for the divergencies and convergencies of life
and forces the careful reader, as the German literary scholar Hubert Zapf has
remarked, into a “deautomatization of cultural conventions of thought and
perception.”
The poets who pick up the “fence” proverb after Frost tend to ignore the
ambiguous nature of the folk wisdom. Here, for example, is Raymond
Souster’s four-line poem “The New Fence” (1955) that argues that a fence between good neighbors is simply not necessary:
(“Good fences make good neighbors”
— Robert Frost)
Take my next-door neighbor and I,
waiting eight years to put one up,
and now that we’ve actually done it
wondering why we bothered in the first place.
But here is yet another twist on the proverb and Robert Frost’s poem. While the
“fence” proverb helps us to preserve our cherished personal independence and
freedom, we must be careful not to twist it into the shortsighted and chauvin-
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75
istic anti-proverb of “Bad neighbors make good fences”—a thought-provoking
variation that concludes Richard Eberhart’s poem “Spite Fence” (1980):
After years of bickerings
Family one
Put up a spite fence
Against family two.
Cheek for cheek
They couldn’t stand it.
The Maine village
Looked so peaceful.
We drove through yearly,
We didn’t know.
Now if you drive through
You see the split wood,
Thin and shrill.
But who’s who?
Who made it,
One side or the other?
Bad neighbors make good fences.
The “Maine village” that Eberhart speaks of could be anywhere in the world,
where disagreeing neighbors put up a fence to cut off communication. There
are many examples that take the wisdom of the proverb variant “Bad neighbors make good fences” far beyond the quiet village scene to the loud arena of
international politics.
In the second half of the twentieth century the “fence” proverb has repeatedly been employed to comment on U.S. and Canadian relations, two countries that are the best of friends and that maintain this friendship through
thousands of miles of a common border. Naturally, there have been periods of
friction, but generally the fence has worked well. Joseph Barber’s book title
Good Fences Make Good Neighbors. Why the United States Provokes Canadians
(1958) tells some of this story, for even though the two countries are as close
in many sociopolitical aspects as any, they both want to retain their separate
identities. That is what makes the fence between them such a good one. The
mass media illustrates this in numerous reports making use of the metaphorical “fence” proverb, as for example in this account:
“Good Fences” Keeping Us Canadian
Much of the history of Canada can be seen as the establishment, maintenance, and adjustment of our border with the United States. The bor-
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Proverbs
Cited from Punch (November 30, 1983),
p. 59. Reproduced with permission of
Punch Ltd.
der is not eroding and the public on both sides may be of a mind to
strengthen “good fences, good neighbors.” That same task remains key
in public policy and it remains central to foreign policy. (Toronto Star,
2000)
Of course, there are also serious concerns at the U.S. and Mexican border,
primarily dealing with illegal immigrants and drug traffic. Clark Reynolds
discussed these problems in his study Do Good Fences Make Good Neighbors?
Recent and Prospective U.S.–Mexican Relations (1973) three decades ago. The
mass media is also filled with numerous articles on the strained relations, signaling that a new iron curtain seems to be falling between the two countries:
Border Watch—Fence Mending
Good fences make good neighbors. That well-known line doesn’t always apply to the border between the United States and Mexico: like
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77
the border between any two countries, our fence has some intentional
holes. A good deal of the traffic in both directions is legal and beneficial
to both sides. But there’s truth in the observation that if Mexico City
and Washington don’t get their border law-enforcement act together,
much misery and unhappiness is likely to lie ahead. (Los Angeles Times,
1993)
But there is yet another major employment of the “fence” proverb on the international scene, to wit its use as a most fitting metaphor in the IsraeliPalestinian conflict in the Middle East. As the journalist Aviva Cantor put it:
“‘Good fences make good neighbors,’ wrote Robert Frost. If his words apply
to any neighbors, it is to Israelis and Palestinians. The two nations are like a
couple mired in distrust, fear, and hatred. But each lives in a dream world, because neither is going to get all the property, nor will either succeed in driving the other out. It is time, then, to separate. [ . . . ] Here’s where the fence
idea comes in—not steel, mines, and barbed wire, but a living fence established at an international conference under the umbrella of the United Nations—which has the structure and the experience of maintaining
peacekeeping operations—and guaranteed by the world body” (Christian
Science Monitor, 1989). Five years later, the Israeli journalist Yosef Goell
echoed these sentiments by once again using the proverb, albeit as a quotation
from Frost: “‘Good fences make good neighbors.’ (Robert Frost) Nations
should separate as much as possible from each other. That is how friction can
be reduced” ( Jerusalem Post, 1994). By the beginning of 1995, Israeli politicians started to think of a real fence that would separate the Israelis from the
Palestinians:
Good Fences Make Good Negotiators
Once, the goal of American diplomacy in the Middle East was to help
Israel and Palestinians live together. Now, the best aim is to help them
live apart. As quickly as possible. Under Ehud Barak’s plan, Israel would
evacuate three-quarters of the West Bank, abandoning some settlements
and annexing others, and build a fence along the border. It would separate Palestinians from the Israeli military and checkpoints, and Israelis
from Palestinian suicide bombers. In some cases, good fences make
good neighbors or at least non-bleeding ones. (Newhouse News Service,
2002)
Separation is perhaps truly the most effective way at the moment to keep Israelis and Palestinians from violent confrontation.
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Proverbs
Referring to the new fence and the “fence” proverb, the London Times
asked two months later on August 17, 2002: “Can you ever a build a
bridge by putting up a fence?” The answer ought to be yes, but the necessary bridge-building between Israelis and Palestinians would be much enhanced if both sides were equally committed to building the fence in the
first place. Such “good” fences for “bad” neighbors could prove the
proverb “Good fences make good neighbors” correct in the case of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And yes, communication across the fence could
just build a bridge to a better time when the fence could come down
again.
This last reference by the journalist Benjamin Forgey on the exhibition
“Between Fences” at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. is
a befitting summary for this investigation of the “fence” proverb. As he reports on the history of fences in the United States, he makes the all too common error of claiming that Robert Frost coined the proverb. Nevertheless, he
is aware of its ambiguity in the poem and as a proverb by itself:
The Great Walls of America
“Good fences make good neighbors.” Even the poet who coined this
most American of proverbs was ambivalent about it. Robert Frost, in
“Mending Wall,” put the line in his neighbor’s mouth, and then proceeded to compare the poor man to “an old-stone savage” moving
around in darkness. This ambivalence is doubtless why the saying became so popular—you can see both sides and both seem equally true.
Or maybe not quite that. It depends on who is laying the fence, and
where and why. Sometimes it simply depends on which side of the fence
you’re on. (Washington Post, 1996)
But it is common knowledge, of course, that there are always two sides to
each fence, to that barrier that both separates and connects, if effective communication and serious commitment to common goals like peace, for example, are present. When people work together on not totally dispensable
fences, they might just build bridges across them and learn to tolerate each
other in a congenial humane way. Fences are a necessary evil in human relationships, and it is better to mend them together than to infringe on each
other’s territory or privacy. Even though “Something there is that doesn’t love
a wall,” there is ample truth in the proverb that “Good fences make good
neighbors.”
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79
“A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS”: AN
ADVERTISING SLOGAN TURNED AMERICAN PROVERB
In Ivan Turgenev’s well-known novel Otsy i deti (Fathers and Sons, 1862)
the geologist Eugenii Vasil’ich Bazarov is looking at a few drawings of the
mountains in Saxony. When Anna Sergeevna Odintsova points out that he as
a scientist could learn much more about these mountains from a book than
these illustrations, Bazarov gives her the surprising answer “Risunok nagliado
predstavit mne to, chto v knige izlozheno na tselykh desiati stranitsakh” (A
picture shows me at a glance what it takes dozens of pages of a book to expound). In other words, it is argued that a picture can in fact be worth more
than numerous book pages. This is doubtlessly the case also for someone who
has difficulty reading or who perhaps cannot read at all. An English proverb
from around 1660 expresses this observation only too well as “Pictures are the
books of the unlearned.” While these references claim that pictures can have
a greater value than books, they can hardly be considered direct antecedents
to the relatively new proverb “A (One) picture is worth a thousand words.”
Although the predominance of visual communication is stressed, the twentieth-century proverb does not contrast the picture with a book or the number
of its pages. Rather it is based on an easily recognizable structure of one picture having the value of a thousand words, a typically proverbial exaggeration
to emphasize the discrepancy between visual and verbal communication.
Modern psychological research on perception has shown that the message
of this proverb is only too true in light of such visual mass media as television,
videos, photographs, advertisements, cartoons, comics, and so on. People
communicate more and more through pictures—a fine example being the
signs in international airports for the foreign travelers—and there is no doubt
that imagery often precedes any verbal process. Alan Dundes, in a fascinating
study on this “primacy of vision in American culture,” has argued convincingly that “Americans have a deep-seated penchant for the visual sense” since
“for Americans the universe is essentially something they can draw a picture
or diagram of.” Dundes supports this claim by referring to several proverbs
and proverbial expressions that reflect this visual metaphorical attitude, his
prime example being the proverb “Seeing is believing” that has a particularly
high frequency in American speech (Dundes 1980). While this proverb dates
back to at least the year 1609 in England, it is surprising that Dundes does
not cite the American proverb “A picture is worth a thousand words” to support his thesis of the visualization of American culture. From what he and social as well as psycholinguistic scholars have been able to show about the
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Proverbs
growing preference of visual communication in American society, a strong
case could certainly be made that the proverb “A picture is worth a thousand
words” had to originate in this country. The fact that it has gained considerable currency since about 1975 as a loan translation in the German language
is yet another convincing indication of America’s cultural predominance in
the Western world where visual media are steadily gaining on the written and
even oral word (see Mieder 1989a).
The coiner of the proverb “A picture is worth a thousand words” certainly had
an acute knowledge of this shift towards imagery of many kinds. But the insight
needed a “catchy” wording and structure in order to gain proverbial currency.
The actual structural pattern was definitely not invented by the person who so
successfully formulated this new text. For there exists a well-defined international proverb structure of “a,one : hundred,thousand” as can be seen from such
texts as “A friend is better than a thousand silver pieces” (Greek), “One good
head is better than a hundred strong hands” (English), “A moment is worth a
thousand gold pieces” (Korean), “A single penny fairly got is worth a thousand
that are not” (German), “Silence is worth a thousand pieces of silver” (Burmese),
and so on. Of particular significance might be the proverb “One deed is worth a
thousand speeches,” which Bartlett Jere Whiting included in his important collection of Early American Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases (1977) with only one
reference from the year 1767. The “thousand speeches” could easily be changed
into “thousand words” and the active “deed” became quite simply the visual “picture.” However, the proverb was not included in a proverb collection until 1977,
and by that time the “picture” proverb had already gained a considerable age itself. It is doubtful that this rather uncommon text served as a direct basis for the
new proverb since it never gained general currency.
To complicate matters a bit more, mention must also be made of such
proverbs as “One laugh is worth a thousand groans,” “One good deed is worth
a hundred promises,” “A smile is worth a million dollars,” and “One smile is
worth a thousand tears” that were all collected in oral use in the United States
between 1945 and 1985 and that are recorded in Wolfgang Mieder’s, Stewart
A. Kingsbury’s, and Kelsie B. Harder’s A Dictionary of American Proverbs
(1992). No matter whether or not any of these texts were already current
when “A picture is worth a thousand words” was formulated, they clearly illustrate the widespread use of the proverbial structure “a,one : hundred,thousand.” That being the case, it only took a keen mind to come up with a new
text (wording) that caught on quickly since it reflected the growing visualization of the American culture and its worldview.
Although the actual coiner of a proverb is rarely known, in this case the
lexicographer Burton Stevenson not only succeeded in 1948 in locating the
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81
individual himself, but he also pinpointed the precise date of its first printed
version. He had discovered the original text “One look is worth a thousand
words” in the American advertising journal Printers’ Ink of December 8,
1921. There the national advertising manager Fred R. Barnard of the Street
Railways Advertising Co. had published a two-page advertisement with the
headline “One Look is Worth a Thousand Words.” The dry explanatory text,
without a picture, is an early plea for the desirability of including pictures in
effective advertisements:
“One Look is Worth a Thousand Words”
So said a famous Japanese philosopher, and he was right—nearly everyone likes to read pictures.
“Buttersweet is Good to Eat” is a very short phrase but it will sell
more goods if presented, with an appetizing picture of the product, to
many people morning, noon and night, every day in the year, than a
thousand word advertisement placed before the same number of people
only a limited number of times during the year.
Good advertising for a trade marked product is nothing more nor
less than the delivery of favorable impressions [pictures] for it, and it
does not make any difference whether they are delivered through newspapers, magazines or street car advertising.
[...]
It is simply the preponderance of favorable impressions [pictures] for
a meritorious product that reminds the consumer to buy it again and
again.
From a modern point of view this advertisement is absolutely boring and the
fact that a picture is missing makes matters even worse. But that is exactly the
purpose of these two pages of text, for Barnard, the shrewd advertising executive, argues innovatively and convincingly that successful advertising is in
fact only possible through pictures. How correct he was can be seen in almost
all the advertisements that are produced today based on this marketing philosophy and surely also on yet another new American proverb “What you see
is what you get.”
About six years later Fred Barnard repeated his conviction in another twopage advertisement. This time, however, he also included a picture of the
happy little boy Bobby, who is looking forward to a piece of cake that his
mother has baked with “Royal” baking powder. The picture of the boy, the
cake, and the can of baking powder result in an effective visual advertising
message:
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Proverbs
“Make a Cake for Bobby”
—that’s what this car card said every day to many millions of women. It
reminded all mothers every day of a sure way to give a treat to their own
children. And hundreds of thousands got an extra thrill with their next
cake making because of the happy expression of the boy on the car card.
In addition Barnard also included a small illustration of six Chinese characters with an English translation: “Chinese Proverb: One picture is worth ten
thousand words.”
Quite obviously Barnard knew about the growing use of proverbs as advertising slogans since they express a message (or truth) with a certain claim
of traditional authority and wisdom. It is of interest that Barnard changed his
earlier formulation “One look is worth a thousand words” to “One picture is
worth ten thousand words.” The use of the word “picture” expresses even
more precisely the idea that the viewer of an advertisement should react with
a mere “look” (glance) at a catchy and somewhat informative picture. The visualization of the advertising message is of utmost importance, and that’s why
Barnard changed his original text now to the picture that is worth “ten thousand” words.
While Barnard referred to a fictitious “Japanese philosopher” as the originator of his first text, he now claims that his varied advertising slogan is in fact
a Chinese proverb. This change of mind alone already indicates that Barnard
simply invented the statement for his manipulative marketing purposes. The
“Japanese philosopher” and the “Chinese proverb” were only added in order
to increase the credibility and authority of the “proverbial” truth. American
readers most likely thought of the sayings of Confucius (551–479 B.C.) when
they read these references, but Barnard’s text is not to be found among his
wisdom sayings nor in Asian proverb collections.
In any case, Barnard’s advertising slogan caught on quickly. In November
of 1934 the Lakeside Press advertising agency produced an advertisement
that is based on the same reasoning that Barnard had used to create his slogan
in the first place: A picture shows a pretty little girl helping her mother baking a cake. To this appealing illustration the copywriter has attached the varied headline “One picture beats a thousand words” with the following text:
Everyone who has ever planned or published a food advertisement
knows that while the copy-writer is struggling futilely for flavorous and
aromatic adjectives to sell the product, the color photographer accomplishes the whole job with a single click of the shutter.
It’s a simple truth that Pictures sell where words can’t.
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83
The last sentence, “Pictures sell where words can’t,” so appropriately called a
“simple truth,” has what it takes for a slogan to become a proverb—it is short
and to the point, it contains a piece of wisdom, it is easily understandable, it
uses everyday vocabulary, and it is memorable. However, no other references
have been located of this sentence. Hidden away in the copy of an advertisement it probably had no chance to catch on and become proverbial.
But advertisers have without doubt accepted the solid advice of the statement “Pictures sell where words can’t,” as can be seen in all types of advertisement in the mass media. Barnard’s slogan in its original wording or in
varied form is heard frequently in oral communication, while at the same
time it is effectively used in advertisements, cartoons, and literary works. In
1944 the DuMont Co. of Precision Electronics and Television used the unchanged headline “One Picture is Worth a Thousand Words” with the beginning of the text adding “ . . . and each picture flashing across the screen of your
DuMont Television-Radio Receiver will fill your home with a kind of delight
you probably have dreamed of many times.” Abernathy’s Department Store
of Burlington, Vermont, quite literally printed only a picture of its establishment with just the caption “One picture is worth a thousand words,” obviously taking the proverb at its face value. Fred Barnard would certainly have
been pleased to see his advertising philosophy employed in this fashion. And
his delight would surely have been at its pinnacle if he had had a chance to
look at a newspaper advertisement depicting nothing but four roses and the
headline “In whiskey, this picture is worth a thousand words.” The name of
the distillery is not even mentioned, and the viewer must make the connection with the Four Roses Whiskey Co. by visual means alone. Here the picture truly is worth a lot, for it must communicate the entire advertising
message and the name of the whiskey.
There are also a couple of comic strips that play upon the standard form of
the proverb. In a Peanuts comic strip Lucy is confronted with the task of writing a two thousand–word report. She wittily observes that “I have heard it said
that one picture is worth a thousand words . . . ,” quickly draws two pictures and
smartly proclaims: “What we have here is a couple of pictures.” This is pretty
clever for a little girl, and it shouldn’t be a surprise that a youngster of this visual
age would reach that literal interpretation of the proverb. Little wonder that
Lucy’s cohort Billy from The Family Circus cartoons has quite a similar reaction
to the proverb: “A picture is worth a thousand words. I guess Shakespeare
should have learned to draw.” The latter example does indeed convey the unwillingness of the younger generation to read the classics. Shakespeare and
other writers of world literature must today be presented in the form of comic
strips, cartoons, videos, or major motion pictures to reach the young popu-
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Cited from Time (September 3, 1984), p. 43.
lation at all. From a pedagogical and cultural literacy point of view the proverb
“A picture is worth a thousand words” can take on a rather depressing connotation since it helps to lessen the importance of the written word.
By now this often-quoted proverb has been reduced to the formula “A
(One) X is worth a thousand words” to express the importance that this society places on almost anything but the verbal message. Often the variable “X”
reflects the materialism that people are eagerly striving for. As early as 1972
the British Jaguar automobile company advertised its luxury sedan with the
slogan “One drive is worth a million words.” The advertising copy is accordingly very short indeed and merely states that the new model was yet further
improved over the already perfect previous Jaguar. Why use a “million words”
to inform the consumer properly when all that is needed is the experience of
an actual ride?! The Ford Motor Co. eagerly followed suit in 1984 with an extensive advertising campaign for its classic Thunderbird. But predictably
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85
American, the advertisement only showed a picture of the car with the large
headline “One drive is worth a thousand words.” Any text whatsoever is missing, and why should the copywriters have bothered when the consumer seemingly wants only to see, touch, and experience the Thunderbird?
A variant of the proverb has also been used as a birthday card message above
the picture of a furry cat holding a rose: “ . . . They say—‘One flower can speak
a thousand words’ . . . ” The text on the inside of the card enumerates dozens of
wishes with the conclusion “in short, briefly, when it comes down to it, at the
end of the day, I really, sincerely hope that your birthday is quite nice!” Equally
“cute” is, of course, a large poster depicting a couple of prairie dogs hugging
each other with the message “A hug is worth a thousand words.” But such messages of friendship and love quickly disappear in such proverbial captions as
“And I say one bomb is worth a thousand words” underneath a caricature of
two high-level military officers discussing the state of the world at a cocktail
party. And how unromantic is the comment by a business executive to another
below a second cartoon: “One dollar is worth a thousand words.” Power and
money have replaced the world of pictures and words, reminding us that the
lack of visual and verbal communication alike endanger our very existence.
There also exist variants that are based on the structural formula “A (One)
picture is worth a thousand Ys” in which it is the usual noun “words” that has
been replaced. The Business Committee for the Arts of the city of Cincinnati
got Wendy’s fast-food franchise to promote a calendar containing pictures of
local artists. A subsequent advertisement in Time explained this new way of
selling Wendy’s hamburgers: It showed one of those pictures and displayed
the large headline “One picture is worth a thousand hamburgers.” Part of the
accompanying copy read as follows:
Wendy’s has discovered there’s an art to selling hamburgers. When
Wendy’s in Cincinnati decided to help local artists, they developed a
calendar which featured paintings of scenes of the city, like the one pictured here. The calendar was sold for $1.19 in 26 of its Cincinnati
restaurants. Wendy’s donated 10 cents to the Cincinnati Commission
on the Arts for each calendar sold . . . From Wendy’s to Flanigan’s Furniture Inc., the Business Committee for the Arts is helping companies of
all sizes discover that supporting the arts can paint a nice picture for
their business. . . . You’ll find your interest repaid a thousand times.
This certainly represents an innovative way of joining forces between business
and art, benefiting both the sales of thousands of hamburgers and, at least
equally important, the appreciation and sale of artists’ works.
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Some copywriters have reduced the proverb “A (One) picture is worth a
thousand words” even further by replacing both the nouns “picture” and
“words” at the same time, the result being the structural formula “A (One) X
is worth a thousand Ys.” In 1980 the Gulf Oil Co. pushed the idea of gas
economy through carpooling by showing a van that transports a number of
employees to work each day with the fitting statement “Gulf is van pooling.
Because one van is worth 1,000 gallons.” And very clever indeed was a British
advertisement for Cross fountain pens based on this pattern since it included
the product name in the slogan, presented a picture of such a pen, and also
played on the traditional custom of placing little crosses at the end of a letter
to represent love and kisses: “A Cross says more than a thousand kisses.” From
a folkloristic point of view this can be considered a slogan masterpiece, and it
is to be expected that it was a mercantile success as well. The proverbial ring
of the altered proverb and the folkloric message of love must have sent plenty
of consumers out on a purchasing spree, indicating once again how folklore
and in particular proverbs are effective tools in modern advertising.
A final group of examples illustrates yet another way that advertisers have
found to manipulate this proverbial slogan. They can all be reduced to the
structural formula “A (One) X is worth a thousand pictures,” and they represent a fascinating reversal of the actual proverb. Of particular interest is a large
advertising page from a 1980 Fortune magazine that in a way goes back to
Fred Barnard’s original advertisement of 1921. Here too there is no picture
and the slogan argues provocatively “Sometimes a word is worth a thousand
pictures.” The adverb “provocatively” is used intentionally since the reader
will obviously juxtapose this variation with the actual proverb “A picture is
worth a thousand words” and wonder what has happened to this clear insight.
But then follows an interesting line of argumentation by the marketing people of the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency, which has specialized in
magazine advertisements for such publications as Fortune:
Whenever it’s rumored that the printed word is about to disappear beneath an electronic wave, there are certain things that give us great comfort. The flourishing state of magazines—as witnessed here by Fortune’s
fiftieth anniversary—is one of them.
Ultimately there is no substitute for print in the transmission of detailed information and complicated ideas. That’s as true for advertising
as it is for anything else.
It is indeed a refreshing fact to see an advertising agency argue for once that
words still count, that is, that informational advertising must rely on the spoken or written word in addition to pictures.
Examples and Texts
87
And yet, other advertising agencies have found a way to use even the reversal formula “A (One) word is worth a thousand pictures” in a way that supports the idea that informational advertisements based on several sentences or
even paragraphs are not desirable. These copywriters, if one can call them
that, simply take the pronoun “a (one)” literally and print just that one word
together with the slogan and no or only a very short explanatory comment.
Thus the Meister Clothes Company printed only its name in large letters and
some nondescript fabrics with the telling slogan “One word that’s worth a
thousand pictures.”
The Howard Bank of Vermont also made effective use of this proverb reversal. Its advertisement contains an empty page with the following message
on the bottom that plays beautifully on the word “Vermont” and its almost
mystical qualities:
A word that’s worth a thousand pictures.
Vermont.
It’s more than a state in New England, it’s a whole state of mind. A oneword summary of farm houses, foliage, syrup and snow that moves
more people than any other word we know.
Vermont. Whether you plow it, paint it, manufacture or market its
products, being here means you’re part of something very special. And
we’re very proud to be in the picture.
The Howard Bank
A last advertising example by the Irish Tourist Board summarizes what has
been said about the proverb “A (One) picture is worth a thousand words” and
its use and reinterpretation in American society. Besides displaying eight colorful pictures, the word “Ireland” appears in large print with the slogan “A
place that’s worth a thousand pictures.” And part of the copy reads: “Ireland is
indescribable. You’ve got to see it to believe it. The next best thing to being
there is to picture the lush, green, rolling hills, crystal clear lakes and rivers,
crisp fresh air and the charming friendly people who speak your language. But
that’s only part of the picture. Because there’s much more to see and do in Ireland.” Yes, it’s seeing, hearing, and experiencing Ireland that counts for the
tourist. After all, the tourist perhaps is the perfect match for the proverb “Seeing is believing.” Maybe there will at least be some tourists who might also pay
some attention to the oral folklore and the written works of James Joyce, for
words ought to be part of a tourist trying to get the complete picture as it were.
All these examples have amply proved that “A (One) picture is worth a
thousand words” has become a bona fide proverb in the Anglo-American
world and through translations slowly in other countries as well. The fact that
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Proverbs
conscious variations of it have been recorded as early as the 1950s is yet another indication that Fred Barnard’s advertising slogan reached a proverbial
status in a relatively short amount of time. With that type of popularity it is
not surprising that the proverb has now been registered as such in various language and proverb dictionaries. As a true American proverb it has been disseminated throughout the English-speaking world and elsewhere as, for
example, in Germany. The proverb with its emphasis on visual preoccupation
represents the worldview of American society in particular. Among a population where “Seeing is believing” is a principle way of communication, the
proverb “A picture is worth a thousand words” will doubtlessly retain equal
importance, and it is a convincing example that new proverbs are still being
coined to reflect the ever changing value system of modern society. One thing
is for certain—there is a lot of wisdom in the claim that “A proverb in the
hand—is often worth a thousand words.”
PROVERBS FROM DIFFERENT CULTURES AND LANGUAGES
The following proverbs were located in numerous proverb collections, but
I am listing at least two or three readily available bilingual collections at the
end of each group of 35 proverbs so that readers can find texts in their original languages. The full bibliographical information is given in the comprehensive bibliography at the end of the book. The proverbs are arranged
alphabetically according to italicized key words, and where appropriate, ethnic identities are provided in parentheses as well.
African Proverbs
Two small antelopes can beat a big one. (Ashanti )
An ax without a handle does not cut firewood. (Swahili )
Beans are not equal to meat. (Ovambo)
However bad the bread it is better than cattle dung. (Hausa)
Do not eat your chicken and throw its feathers in the front yard. (Kpelle)
A child that does not cry dies in the cloth it is carried in. (Shona)
Two cocks do not crow from the same roof. (Annang)
Two crocodiles do not live in one hole. (Ga)
A dog with a full mouth will not bark. (Fulani)
When two elephants jostle, that which is hurt is the grass. (Swahili )
All the flowers of a tree do not produce fruit. (Wolof )
By the time the fool has learned the game, the players have dispersed.
(Ashanti )
If you make friends on the road, your knife will be lost. (Oji )
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89
A goat cannot be cooked with the hyena. (Hausa)
You cannot shave a man’s head in his absence. (Yoruba)
A hen does not break her own egg. (Swahili )
Hunger cannot be washed away like dirt. (Shona)
When rain beats on a leopard it wets him, but it does not wash his spots.
(Ashanti )
Love is like color which fades away. (Shona)
It is the mouth that cuts the throat. (Hausa)
If the natives eat rats, eat rats. (Swahili )
The owner of the bed knows his bed bug. (Fulani )
A path has ears. (Ashanti )
A pot does not boil when not looked after. (Zulu)
Rats never sleep on the mat of the cat. (Jabo)
Make haste before the road gets slippery. (Bemba)
The rope that is not at hand does not bind the firewood. (Swahili )
A sack is no load for a goat. (Hausa)
When the snail crawls, its shell accompanies it. (Yoruba)
If a snake bites your neighbor, you too are in danger. (Swahili )
Noisy talk does not bring about a solution. (Ovambo)
The tortoise is not overburdened by its shell. (Shona)
The vulture scents the carcass, however high in the air he may be.
(Yoruba)
Water from a salt well puts out a house on fire. (Ovambo)
The best words give no food. (Wolof )
(see Kuusi 1970; Pachocinski 1996; Scheven 1981; Whitting 1940)
Arabic Proverbs
To ask well is to know much.
If the ass is summoned to the wedding it is to carry wood.
A handful of bees is worth more than a sackful of flies.
The beetle in its hole is a sultan.
A bird by its note and a man by his talk.
Birth is the messenger of death.
A book is like a garden carried in the pocket.
Be brothers, but keep accounts.
The camel is an open shop.
In the house where there are no children they have no light.
When the cow falls down, knives are plentiful.
The dogs bark, but the caravan passes.
When the donkey has eaten his fill he scatters his fodder.
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Proverbs
He who eats alone, coughs alone.
When fate arrives the physician becomes a fool.
Every man thinks his own fleas gazelles.
The flies know the face of the milkman.
If your friend be honey, don’t eat him.
If minds were alike goods would age in the bazaars.
Keep your tents separate and bring your hearts together.
Light your lamp before it gets dark.
Life, like fire, begins with smoke and ends with ashes.
Love and pregnancy and riding upon a camel can’t be hid.
Nobody is perfect save Mohammed.
He who earns money earns tears.
Moonlight and oil are the ruin of a house.
It is not every time that the pitcher is saved.
Power is sweet to nurse, bitter to wean.
Repetition will teach the donkey.
All roads lead to the flour mill.
He who has no spoon burns his hand.
The clever thief does not steal from his own street.
The wall that has support does not fall.
A well of sweet water is always empty.
The world is a scratching of donkeys.
(see Champion 1938 [1963]: 329–344, Hankí 1998)
Chinese Proverbs
Keep your broken arm within your sleeve.
When eating bamboo sprouts, remember the man who planted them.
If you cannot pole a boat, don’t meddle with the pole.
You can’t get fat from a dry bone.
A load of books does not equal one good teacher.
Clean out the drainpipes while the weather is good.
If a family has an old person in it, it possesses a jewel.
Even the ten fingers cannot be of equal length.
Friends should have a high wall between them.
You can’t catch two frogs with one hand.
One generation opens the road upon which another travels.
When the guests have gone the host is at peace.
Every highway leads to Peking.
Hunger is cured by food, ignorance by study.
Ivory does not grow in the mouth of a dog.
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91
Don’t lift off the lid too soon.
Sweet-melon lips, bitter-melon heart.
No medicine can cure a vulgar man.
The melon-seller shouts that his melons are sweet.
Money hides a thousand deformities.
To have a good neighbor is to find something precious.
An official never flogs a bearer of gifts.
You can’t beat oil out of chaff.
Everyone has a black pig in his house.
Little posts cannot support heavy weights.
If the profits are great, the risks are great.
Don’t add salt to a boat load of salt fish.
You cannot get two skins from one cow.
Speak softly, and be slow to begin your speech.
Leave a little of the tail to whisk off the flies.
A good talker does not equal a good listener.
Tiger and deer do not walk together.
When the tree falls there is no shade.
Distant water cannot quench a fire near by.
Words are empty, but the writing-brush leaves traces.
(see Rohsenow 2002; Smith 1888 [1965]; Sun 1981)
French Proverbs
It is good to give advice, but better to give the remedy.
Be not a baker if your head is of butter.
Beauty is eloquent even when silent.
Forbidden bread creates an appetite.
Every cook makes his own sauce.
The old cow thinks she never was a calf.
Death is deaf to our wailings.
A door must be either open or shut.
The dough of poor people freezes in the oven.
Dress slowly when you are in a hurry.
There’s not enough if there’s not too much.
The shortest follies are the best.
Leave off playing when the game is at its best.
Hope is the bread of the unfortunate.
Without jealousy there is no love.
A fat kitchen makes a lean will.
Don’t rely on the label of the bag.
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Proverbs
Life is half spent before we know what life is.
A hard loaf needs a sharp tooth.
A crooked log makes a good fire.
Old loves and old embers soon catch fire.
Everyone must go to the mill with his own sack.
Money is a good passport.
Stroke a nettle and it will sting you, grasp it and it is as soft as silk.
Precious ointments are put in small boxes.
An old oven is easier to heat than a new one.
Paris was not built in a day.
Rain always falls on those who are wet.
Rust wears more than use.
The first step binds one to the second.
There are toys for all ages.
Love truth, but pardon error.
Wine and confession reveal everything.
A tiny little word can be a clap of thunder.
Youth lives on hope, old age on remembrance.
(see Brezin-Rossignol 1997; Flonta 2001a; Mertvago 1996a)
German Proverbs
Who says “A” must also say “B.”
Old age doesn’t protect from folly.
A good anvil does not fear the hammer.
Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Beauty wanes, virtue remains.
In brevity there is spice.
Little children, little troubles; big children, big troubles.
A clean conscience is a soft pillow.
Without diligence, no prize.
Fools’ hands besmear table and walls.
He who greases well, drives well.
Dirty hands, clean money.
One’s own hearth is worth gold.
Idleness is the beginning of all vice.
Ingratitude is the world’s reward.
What little Jack doesn’t learn, big Jack will never learn.
The last gets bitten by the dogs.
Lies have short legs.
Old love does not rust.
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93
Luck and glass break easily.
Married state, painful state.
The morning hour has gold in its mouth.
Order is half of life.
Who does not honor the penny is not worthy of the thaler.
Practice makes the master.
He who rests, rusts.
A good rooster seldom turns fat.
Self-praise stinks.
Better a sparrow in the hand than a pigeon on the roof.
First think, then dare.
What takes a long time turns out well at last.
Time brings counsel.
A good trade has a golden foundation.
Old trees must not be transplanted.
Who does not love wine, women, and song, remains a fool his whole life
long.
(see Kremer 1955; Mertvago 1997a;
Schemann and Knight 1995; and my own translations)
Indian Proverbs
Giving advice to a stupid man is like giving salt to a squirrel. (Kashmiri )
A full belly makes a heavy head. (Bihar)
It is a brave bird that makes its nest in the cat’s ear. (Hindi )
A frisky bull carries a good load. (Telugu)
A calf that goes with a pig will eat excrement. (Tamil )
Charity protects you. (Hindustani )
Distance promotes close friendship. (Tamil )
The eagle will not pursue flies. (Hindi )
The frog perishes by its own mouth. (Tamil )
Empty hands don’t go to the mouth. (Hindustani )
Honor and profit are not found in the same dish. (Hindi )
Hunger cannot be satisfied by eating froth. (Tamil )
Justice is better than worship. (Kashmiri )
Labor is bitter, but sweet is the bread which it buys. (Hindi )
Where love reigns the impossible may be attained. (Tamil )
Music has no charms for a buffalo. (Bihar)
A good name comes after a while, but a bad name is soon obtained.
(Kashmiri )
The owl is small, its screech is loud. (Tamil )
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Proverbs
One blind ox will lead a thousand oxen astray. (Kashmiri )
What is play to one is death to another. (Bihar)
A cracked pot will hold sugar. (Tamil )
Quarrels come of laughter, and disease of coughing. (Hindi )
A kind reception is better than a feast. (Telugu)
If rice is thrown on the roof, a thousand crows will come. (Tamil )
It is easy to throw anything into the river, but difficult to take it out
again. (Kashmiri )
A slip of the tongue is worse than that of the foot. (Tamil )
Kill the snake as well as save the stick. (Bihar)
Soil that is fertile is unfit for the road. (Hindi )
A single stick upon the hearth does not burn. (Kashmiri )
A dog’s tail can never be straightened. (Bihar)
He who planted the tree will water it. (Tamil )
If virtue fails, honor decreases with it. (Telugu)
A word stirs up anger or love. (Kashmiri )
Lack of work brings a thousand diseases. (Hindi )
The world befriends the elephant and tramples on the ant. (Hindustani )
(see Carr 1868 [1988]; Jensen 1897 [1989]; Lazarus 1894 [1991])
Irish Proverbs
It’s too late to throw out the anchor when the ship is on the rocks.
An empty barn needs no roof.
The beauty of an old shoe is to polish it.
There is no place like the bed.
One bite of a rabbit is worth two bites of a cat.
Shallow brooks are noisy.
Don’t expect a cherry tree from an acorn.
It is easier to build two chimneys than to keep smoke in one.
Many a white collar covers a dirty neck.
Come seldom, come welcome.
A bad cow is better than none.
Death is the poor person’s cure.
It’s not the time to go for the doctor when the person is dead.
The drunkard will soon have daylight in through the rafters.
It’s natural for ducks to go barefoot.
Never praise a ford till you are over.
Generosity never went to hell.
If you put a silk suit on a goat, it is still a goat.
It takes a dirty hand to make a clean hearth.
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95
A herring in the pan is worth twenty in the sea.
Cleaning the house will not pay the rent.
Hunger is a good kitchen.
Good luck is better than early rising.
It is not the big mansion that makes the happy home.
Good mearings [boundaries] make good neighbors.
Big potatoes develop from little potatoes.
A dumb priest never gets a parish.
It is too late to put a prop under a house when it falls.
All are not saints that go to church.
There is skill in all things, even in making porridge.
It is difficult to take socks off a bare-footed man.
You can’t teach a swallow how to fly.
Time used sharpening a scythe is not time wasted.
It is a poor village that has neither smoke nor fire.
There can be no window where there is no wall.
(see Gaffney and Cashman 1974; Williams 2000)
Italian Proverbs
Good bargains empty the purse.
The beard does not make the philosopher.
Beauty is a fading flower.
All is not butter that comes from the cow.
Who has no children does not know what love is.
The white coat does not make the miller.
You cannot hide from your conscience.
A courtesy is a flower.
Death alone can kill hope.
Diligence is the mother of good fortune.
Every door has its knocker.
Better an egg today than a hen tomorrow.
When the feast is over the saint is forgotten.
The flame is not far from the smoke.
Every flower loses its perfume in the end.
Fortune is a cow who shows her head to some and her tail to others.
Friends tie their purses with a spider’s thread.
Some look for hair in new-laid eggs.
Every horse scares the flies away with its own tail.
Who knows the most believes the least.
It is better to live small than to die big.
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Proverbs
The miser is like the donkey which carries wine and drinks water.
A near neighbor is better than distant relatives.
It is better to keep peace than to make peace.
The purse pays for the eye’s mistake.
A young saint, an old devil.
A sin concealed is half pardoned.
Nothing dries quicker than tears.
Time is a file that emits no noise.
Truth can be bent but not broken.
Beware of vinegar that is made of sweet wine.
Words and deeds are not weighed in the same balance.
Words do not make flour.
Hasty work, double work.
The world is a fine book but of little use to those who know not how to
read.
(see Mertvago 1997b; Flonta 2001b)
Japanese Proverbs
Beauty is but one layer of skin.
A caged bird longs for the clouds.
You can’t eat the rice cake in a picture.
The good calligrapher is not choosy about his writing brush.
What is cheap may also be bad.
The cherry tree is known among others by its flowers.
Confused crabs miss their holes.
The drums sound according to the way they are struck.
Even dust when accumulated makes a mountain.
Eggplants do not grow on melon vines.
The eyes speak as much as the mouth.
Large fish do not live in a small pond.
Friendship is the marriage of the soul.
A general of a defeated army should not talk of tactics.
If the heart is right, the deeds will be right.
A jewel unless polished will not sparkle.
There is no short cut to learning.
Love lives in palaces as well as in thatched cottages.
Money matters make strangers.
Monkeys laugh at the buttocks of other monkeys.
Hot passion cools easily.
Wealthy people have many worries.
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Fast ripe, fast rotten.
Early rising has seven [many] advantages.
Although shrimps may dance around they do not leave the river.
Better a stitch now than ten stitches later.
Study well, play well.
A quick temper does not bring success.
Unless you enter the tiger’s den, you cannot take the cubs.
The tongue is mightier than the sword.
The train waits for no one.
There are no better treasures than children.
Take an umbrella before you get wet.
In a village do as the village does.
Wisdom and virtue are like the two wheels of a cart.
(see Akiyama 1940; Buchanan 1965; Galef 1987)
Russian Proverbs
Two bears don’t live together in one den.
Without having tasted the bitter, you will not know the sweet.
Don’t chop off the branch on which you are sitting.
Bread with water is better than a pie with trouble.
As the call, so the echo.
Give a child seven nannies, and it is sure to be neglected.
The cow is giving birth, but the bull’s tail hurts.
A frightened crow fears even a bush.
To the drunkard the sea is knee-deep.
Eggs don’t teach the hen.
A small fish is better than a large cockroach.
One fisherman spots another from afar.
If you don’t know the ford, don’t get into the water.
The farther you go in the forest, the more firewood you find.
Each person is the forger of his own happiness.
It is too late to worry about your hair when you are about to lose your
head.
Better be born happy than pretty.
The heart is not a stone.
Learning is light, ignorance is darkness.
Where there is love, even a hut will seem like heaven.
A morsel looks big in other people’s hands.
Moscow wasn’t built in an instant.
A bad peace is better than a good quarrel.
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Proverbs
What’s been written with a pen, can’t be chopped out with an ax.
Allow a pig to sit at your table, and it will put its feet on it.
Don’t have 100 rubles, have 100 friends.
There’s no point in taking your samovar to Tula [the city where the
samovars have traditionally been made].
Seven [the majority] don’t wait for one.
If you like to ride, then like pulling the sled.
A tailor lacks trousers, a shoe-maker lacks shoes.
If everyone gives a thread, the naked man will get a shirt.
A tongue will get you to Kiev.
Truth stabs the eyes.
If you are afraid of wolves, don’t go into the forest.
The word of the Tsar is a proverb.
(see Lubensky 1995; Margulis and Kholodnaya 2000;
Mertvago 1995)
Spanish Proverbs
Admiration is the daughter of ignorance.
Beauty and chastity have a mortal quarrel between them.
When the bed is small lie in the center.
Though a cage may be made of solid gold, it is still a cage.
Don’t look for three feet on a cat.
The best cloth has uneven thread.
An open door tempts a saint.
Faces we see, hearts we don’t know.
A fire is easily kindled on a warm hearth.
No fly dares approach a boiling pot.
If every fool carried a stick, firewood would be scarce.
The lame goat has no siesta.
A guest is beautiful at his back.
The heart is no traitor.
Everyone should scratch his own itch.
Jealousy bites deeper than fleas.
Who knows little soon tells it.
The remedy for love is land between.
The lovers always think that other people have had their eyes put out.
Marry and grow tame.
Both melons and women are hard to know.
Money makes the dog dance.
The needle knows what it sows, and the thimble what it pushes.
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99
Take away the opportunity, and you take away the sin.
Prosperity forgets father and mother.
Punishment is a cripple, but it does arrive.
Take the middle of the road and you won’t fall.
A good rooster will crow in any chicken coop.
The absent saint gets no candle.
With the spoon that you choose you will eat.
Sometimes talking loses what silence has gained.
He who sows thistles should not go barefoot.
Time is gold.
The tongue should not say what the head has to pay for.
Words should be weighed, not counted.
(see Ballesteros 1979; Chen 1998; Flonta 2001e; Mertvago 1996b)
Yiddish Proverbs
A little advice can heal a backache.
Age weakens teeth and memory.
You don’t need a calendar to die.
A cantor without a voice is like a sheep without wool.
Chutspeh succeeds.
Even a shelled egg won’t leap into your mouth.
If there’s nothing worth seeing, eyeglasses won’t help.
It is easy to poke the fire with another’s hands.
When a fool goes to the baths, he forgets to wash his face.
Better a lame foot than a lame brain.
The heart is half a prophet.
If you stay at home, you won’t wear out your shoes.
The best horse is only a carcass when it dies.
Life is a big headache on a busy street.
If you have no linen, you save on laundry bills.
Love is sweet, but tastes best with bread.
Marriage brings much pain but not marrying brings no pleasure.
If you spend money for butter, you won’t have any for bread.
Pearls around the neck, stones upon the heart.
A full purse is not so good as an empty one is bad.
Sitting next to the rabbi is no guarantee of becoming one.
Better a rooster in the hand than an eagle in the sky.
Keeping the Sabbath is easier than preparing it.
Every sack is strong until it rips.
Where salt is needed shortening won’t do.
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Proverbs
The schlemiel lands on his back and bruises his nose.
A wounded spirit is hard to heal.
When the stomach is empty so is the brain.
False teeth don’t hurt.
A nasty tongue is worse than a wicked hand.
Half a truth is a whole lie.
You can’t dance at two weddings at the same time.
One cannot live by another’s wits.
New worlds, new troubles.
Worries go down better with soup than without.
(see Ayalti 1949; Kogos 1970; Kumove 1984 [1986] and 1999)
AUTHENTIC AMERICAN PROVERBS
Many of the proverbs in common use in the United States go back to classical, biblical, and medieval times. They already existed in the English language of Great Britain, and they made their way to North America together
with the proverbs of later centuries by way of British immigrants. Such frequently used proverbs include: classical: “One hand washes the other” and
“Love is blind”; biblical: “An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth (Exod.
21:24, Lev. 24:20, Deut. 19:21, Matt. 5:38) and “Man does not live by bread
alone” (Deut. 8:3, Matt. 4:4); medieval: “New brooms sweep clean” and “All
that glitters is not gold ”; and later centuries: “Haste makes waste” (1346),
“Empty vessels make the greatest sound” (1430), “Little pitchers have large
ears” (1546), “Beauty is only skin deep” (1606), “A stitch in time saves nine”
(1732), and “Once bitten, twice shy” (1853). They and hundreds more belong to the proverbs that are in continued use in the United States. But they
are not American proverbs in the narrower sense, since they did not originate
on the soil of this country. Rather they belong to that large stock of proverbs
known and used in the various “Englishes” of the world.
In order to shed some light on what proverbs might in fact have been coined
in the United States, the American paremiologist Richard Jente (1888–1952)
undertook a fascinating study in 1931 based on a compilation of “Proverbs and
Proverbial Expressions Current in the United States East of the Missouri and
North of the Ohio Rivers” (1929) that Margaret Hardie had published two
years earlier. Hardie’s list includes 176 individually numbered proverbs with 23
unnumbered variants for a total of 199 texts (Hardie 1929). Since Hardie had
provided no annotations, Jente investigated each text for its possible origin in
his seminal paper “The American Proverb” (1931–1932), reaching the following conclusions: Approximately 70 percent of these proverbs could be verified
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by way of English proverb collections to have been in use in England over 200
years earlier, that is, before one can talk of the United States as such. These
proverbs are thus of English or even earlier medieval, biblical, or classical origin,
having found their way to North America with many other texts. The remaining 30 percent, or about 58 proverbs, Jente could not locate in early English
proverb collections. However, for 26 of them he was able to establish at least
possible English origins. This means that the English contribution to this list of
proverbs current in the United States around 1930 is 84 percent, or 167 of the
199 proverbs. Of the remaining 16 percent, or 32 proverbs, 3.5 percent, or 7
texts, might be adaptations from the English while 6 percent, or 12 proverbs,
are from foreign sources other than English. Jente also lists three proverbs of uncertain origin (1.5 percent), which finally leaves the meager number of 10
proverbs, or 5 percent, that are at least with some certainty of American origin.
They are as follows:
A setting hen never grows fat.
Don’t kick a fellow when he’s down.
Great minds run in the same channels.
It pays to advertise.
Laugh and the world laughs with you, weep and you weep alone.
Paddle your own canoe.
The harder you fall the higher you bounce.
The bigger they are the harder they fall.
This won’t buy the baby’s shoes.
This won’t buy a dress for the baby or pay for the one it has on.
(Hardie 1929: 461–465; Jente 1931–1932: 347)
When Jente undertook his task of finding the truly American proverbs in
Hardie’s list, he did not have the major historical proverb dictionaries of the
Anglo-American world available yet. But he was quite correct in his work. The
American origin of the first eight proverbs has now been established beyond
any doubt. They are all registered with annotations in A Dictionary of American Proverbs (1992), where my co-editors Stewart A. Kingsbury and Kelsie B.
Harder and I have recorded over 15,000 proverbs collected in use in the
United States between 1945 and 1985. It should be noted, however, that
“Don’t kick a fellow when he’s down” is probably a new American variant of
the much earlier British proverbial expression “to hit (kick) a man when he is
down” that goes back to 1551 (see Smith 1935 [1970]: 374; Mieder, Kingsbury, and Harder 1992: 205). “The bigger they are the harder they fall” has
traditionally been attributed to the heavyweight boxer Robert Fitzsimmons
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Proverbs
before his losing fight with James J. Jeffries on July 25, 1900, at San Francisco.
But he most likely was varying a British proverb that goes back at least to
1493: “The higher degre [position] the harder is the fal.” Some classical antecedents to this formulation have also been found by now (see Stevenson
1948: 749 [no. 2]; Simpson 1982 [1998]: 22–23; Mieder, Kingsbury, and
Harder 1992: 51). But be that as it may, both proverbs in the precise formulation as listed by Hardie are in fact American variants that have conquered the
English-speaking world. They can safely be called American proverbs as well.
The last two texts about the “baby” are not proverbs per se but rather
proverbial expressions along the lines of the popular phrase “That dog won’t
hunt” with the meaning that something is not going to work. The two expressions listed by Hardie might have been regional variants of “This won’t
buy the baby a new frock” (We are achieving nothing like this) for which I
have located a reference (see Wilkinson 1993: 276). In any case, both Hardie
and Jente were wrong in classifying the two proverbial expressions as
proverbs, thus bringing Jente’s statistics of American proverbs in Hardie’s list
down to eight or a mere 4 percent of the total.
All of this shows how difficult it is to establish that a certain proverb is of
true American coinage. In fact, for each proverb under consideration, an involved historical investigation would have to be undertaken to find its origin.
Fortunately there are now several valuable historical proverb dictionaries
available, and dictionaries like The Oxford English Dictionary and the possibility of electronic database searches will help such studies along considerably.
The Dictionary of American Proverbs is a major resource in the hunt for authentic American proverbs. The following list presents more than a hundred
(109) proverbs that for now appear to be American. There is, of course, always the chance that an earlier British reference might be found. In any case,
the dates behind the texts (identified by M plus date when available) represent the earliest reference found thus far, one that precedes any British (or
Canadian, Australian, etc.) occurrence. For those proverbs without dates, it is
at least important to realize that they were registered in the United States between 1945 and 1985. A few additional texts have been added from John A.
Simpson’s The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs (1982 [1998], identified
by S plus date) and from Charles C. Doyle’s list of “New Proverbs” (1996,
identified by D plus date when available). What these representative proverbs
show is that there has been a steady stream of new American proverbs entering the language during the past three centuries. They deserve to be called
“American proverbs” rather than “proverbs current in America.” And one
more thing: owing to the global importance of the American language, many
of these proverbs have been spread to other English-speaking countries of the
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world through the mass media, tourism, popular culture, foreign-language
instruction, and so on. Some of these proverbs have also become current in
other languages by way of loan translations. Proverbs, and in particular American proverbs, are on the march even today—no doubt about it.
It pays to advertise. (M, no date)
Age before beauty. (M1843)
Alcohol and driving don’t mix. (M, no date)
There are no atheists in foxholes. (M1944, D1944)
No matter how you slice it, it’s still baloney. (M1931, D1927)
If you can’t beat them, join them. (M1941, S1941)
Beauty doesn’t make the pot boil. (M1860)
Been there, done that. (D, no date)
The blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice. (M, no date)
The bigger they are (come), the harder they fall. (M1900, corrected
date)
You can’t judge a book by its cover. (M1929, S1929)
You can take the boy out of the country, but you can’t take the country
out of the boy. (M, no date, S1938)
Don’t cross the bridge till you come to it. (M1850, S1850)
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. (S1977)
The camera doesn’t lie. (D, no date)
Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker. (M1931, D1931)
Paddle your own canoe. (M1802)
Let the chips fall where they may. (M1880)
Crime doesn’t pay. (M1927, D1927)
Curiosity killed the cat. (M1909, S1921)
The customer is always right. (M1928, S1917)
Another day, another dollar. (M1957, D1957)
The best defense is a good offense. (M1775, S1775)
You can’t tell the depth of the well by the length of the handle on the
pump. (M1940)
Diamonds are a girl’s best friends. (D1949)
If you drink, don’t drive. (M, no date)
Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you may die. (M1700)
You are what you eat. (M1941, S1940)
You can’t unscramble eggs. (M1928, D1928)
An elephant never forgets. (M1937)
Experience keeps (is) a dear school, but fools learn in no other. (M1743,
S1743)
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Proverbs
Keep your eye on the doughnut and not on the hole. (D, no date)
Facts don’t lie. (M1748)
All is fair in love and war. (M1835, S1845)
Father knows best. (M1931)
Don’t kick a fellow when he is down. (M1809, corrected date)
Good fences make good neighbors. (M1640, S1640, corrected date
1850; see Mieder 2003)
Figures don’t lie. (M1739)
Better a big fish in a little pond than a little fish in a big pond. (M, no
date)
Flattery will get you nowhere. (M1904)
You can’t beat a man at his own game. (M1756)
Garbage in, garbage out. (M1964, S1964)
What goes around, comes around. (S1974)
The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. (M1959,
S1959; actually already 1924; see Mieder 1993c)
No guts, no glory. (M, no date, D, no date)
Nice guys finish last. (D, no date)
The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. (M1814, S1814)
If you don’t like the heat, get out of the kitchen. (S1952)
A setting hen never gets (grows) fat. (M, no date)
Hindsight is twenty-twenty. (D, no date)
Last hired, first fired. (D1975)
Root, hog, or die. (M1834)
Home is where the heart is. (M1870, S1870)
Don’t change (swap) horses in the middle of the stream (in mid-stream).
(M1864, S1864)
Industry pays debts, but despair increases them. (M1742)
Justice delayed is justice denied. (M, no date, D, no date)
The opera (It) isn’t over till the fat lady sings. (M1978, S1978)
Laziness travels so slowly that poverty soon overtakes him (it). (M1756)
Life begins at forty. (M1932, S1932)
Life is just (but) a bowl of cherries. (M1933, D1933)
Life is just one (damned) thing after another. (M1906, D1906)
There’s no such thing as a free lunch. (S1967)
You can’t keep a good man down. (M1900)
Great minds run in the same channel. (M, no date)
Money can’t buy happiness. (M1792)
Money doesn’t grow on trees. (M1750)
Money isn’t everything. (M1927, S1927)
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Put your money where your mouth is. (M, no date, D, no date)
Nobody is perfect. (M1805)
A picture is worth a thousand words. (M1921, see Mieder 1990)
It’s better to be pissed off than pissed on. (D, no date)
Politics makes strange bedfellows. (M1839, S1839)
Put up or shut up. (M1924)
Three removes are as bad as a fire. (M1736, S1758)
There is no royal road to learning. (M1824, S1824)
There’s always room at the top. (M1900, S1900)
Hoe your own row. (M1844)
It’s a poor rule that won’t work both ways. (M1837)
What you see, is what you get. (S1971)
Don’t give up the ship. (M1814)
From shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations. (M1907, S1907)
Shit happens. (D, no date)
Shit or get off the pot. (D1952)
Every man must skin his own skunk. (M1813)
There will be sleeping enough in the grave. (M1741)
Sloth makes all things difficult, but industry makes all things easy.
(M1734)
Small is beautiful. (S1973)
If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem. (S1968)
Speak softly and carry a big stick. (M1901)
Three strikes and you’re out. (D1942)
Different strokes for different folks. (M, no date, S1973; actually 1968,
and in oral use in the 1950s; see Mieder 1989: 317–332; McKenzie
1996).
Don’t sweat the small stuff. (D, no date)
If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. (M1840, S1840)
Nothing succeeds like success. (M1867, S1867)
There’s a sucker born every minute. (M1850)
Talk is cheap. (M1843, S1843)
It takes two to tango. (S1952)
One thing at a time. (M1702)
The best things in life are free. (M1940)
Things are tough all over. (M, no date, D, no date)
No tickee, no washee. (M1931, D1931; in oral use perhaps already at
the end of the nineteenth century; see Mieder 1996)
When the going gets tough, the tough get going. (S1962)
Two can live as cheaply as one. (M1921, D1921)
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Proverbs
Use it or lose it. (D, no date)
Variety is the spice of life. (M1778, S1785)
Hitch your wagon to a star. (M1870)
Water seeks its own level. (M1778)
You can’t win them all. (S1953)
You’re only young once. (M1941, D1929)
(see Mieder, Kingsbury, and Harder 1992; Simpson 1982 [1998];
Doyle 1996)
Many proverbs could be added to this list, but they would not necessarily be
known throughout the United States and beyond. The proverbs cited here
from A Dictionary of American Proverbs are all identified there as having general currency throughout the country. From John A. Simpson’s The Concise
Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs (1982 [1998]) and other English-language
proverb collections it is clear that these American proverbs have in fact made
their way to Great Britain and doubtlessly also to Canada, Australia, and so on.
REGIONAL AMERICAN PROVERBS
Many proverbs in A Dictionary of American Proverbs are listed with only
one or two designations of states where they were recorded between 1945 and
1985. They are thus regional proverbs or variants of common proverbs. But
these geographical indicators must be taken with a proverbial grain of salt. It
is obviously very difficult to establish the precise and restricted location where
certain proverbs are used or even coined. This is not the place to present extended lists of regional proverbs from the different American states, but here
are at least two samples from Vermont and Texas, one a small state in the
Northeast, the other a large state in the Southwest. A few examples of Mexican American proverbs from the Southwest are included as well.
Among the local proverbs current in Vermont without being limited to
that small state is the proverb “Talk less and say more.” I have not been able
to find it in any proverb collection, and it does indeed characterize the alleged
taciturnity of native Vermonters. But here are a few more examples that fit
well for this rural state. I collected them in oral use during more than 30 years
living in Vermont, appropriately entitling my small popular book “Talk Less
and Say More”: Vermont Proverbs (1986):
Never cackle unless you lay.
Every cow needs a tail in fly time.
You can’t judge a cow by her looks.
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107
It’s a rare farm that has no bad ground.
You can’t mow hay where the grass doesn’t grow.
The early robin looks for worms behind the early plow.
Keep a thing seven years and it will sort of do.
The time to pick berries is when they’re ripe.
You can’t get wool off a frog.
The world is your cow, but you have to do the milking.
(Mieder 1986; Mieder 1993a)
The proverbs from Texas also indicate the rural life, but this time it is not
so much dairy farming but rather the work with cattle on the ranch. Perhaps one might even recognize a bit of the stereotypical Texan in these
forceful texts:
A bastard always looks like his father.
He who watches the clock will only be a hand.
Don’t kick until you’re spurred.
Man is the only animal that can be skinned more than once.
Misfortune, like the rattler, does not always give a warning before striking.
A fool’s mouth is his destruction.
There is little rust on a useful tool.
Steel will not bend, but it will break.
The track of evil thought is crooked and has no end.
The world owes you a living, providing you earn it.
(Atkinson 1954; Smith and Eddins 1937)
But speaking of Texas brings to mind the many Mexican American immigrants who live primarily in the Southwest of the United States. They have
brought many of their proverbs with them, using them in their native Spanish language and, at times, also translating them into English. Eventually
some of these proverbs will gain currency in English as well, just as other immigrant proverbs have been transplanted into the American multicultural environment. Here are a few examples from two collections based on actual
field research among Mexican Americans:
La ambición rompe el saco.
Ambition will tear your coat.
No le busques tres pies al gato.
Don’t look for three feet on a cat.
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Proverbs
El que no oye consejos, no llegará a viejo.
He who does not listen to advice, will not grow old.
Caras vemos, coraznes no sabemos.
Faces we see, hearts we don’t know.
Con dinero baila el perro.
Money makes the dog dance.
Un buen gallo en cualquier gallinero canta.
A good rooster will crow in any chicken coop.
Al nopal nomás lo van a ver cuando tiene tunas.
People go to the cactus only when it bears fruit.
Las piedras rodando se encuentran.
Rolling stones often cross paths.
El tiempo es oro.
Time is gold.
Quien tiene buen vecino tiene buen amigo.
A good neighbor is a good friend.
(see Ballesteros 1979; Glazer 1987)
Shirley Arora, the leading expert on Spanish proverb use in the United States,
has pointed out that the various Spanish-speaking immigrant groups make
considerable use of their traditional proverbs for didactic purposes, the regulation of social relationships, child rearing, cultural identification (ethnicity),
and lending metaphorical expressiveness to verbal communication. Obviously some of the proverbs get translated into English as well, while English
proverbs find their way into Spanish (Arora 1982; Briggs 1985). It is exactly
this bilingual proverb use that is of great sociolinguistic importance during
inculturation processes of the Mexican American population and all other
immigrants.
NATIVE AMERICAN PROVERBS
While proverbs abound in the thousands in most cultures of the world, it
remains a riddle why the Native Americans have hardly any proverb tradition
at all. Members of the many Indian tribes in North, Central, and South
America have but a very few proverbs. Even though anthropologists, folklorists, and linguists have tried to find at least some proverbs, the fact remains
that the Native Americans are quite unique in their lack of large numbers of
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109
proverbs. No satisfactory answer has been found for this dearth of proverbs,
and one cannot help but wonder whether scholars have simply not tried hard
enough to find and collect the proverbs. When I called for a scholarly prize
competition in 1988 to encourage the collection of Native American proverbs,
not a single scholar responded to my offer of publishing lists of proverbs together with awarding a monetary prize (Mieder 1989b). The problem at least
in part seems to be a certain disinterest, perhaps because of the difficulty of
spotting the proverbs in linguistically difficult languages.
In any case, some proverbs have been recorded in a very few scholarly publications. I am aware of perhaps 200 true Native American proverbs and
proverbial expressions, having tried for 30 years to find more texts. This is indeed a sad state of affairs. The following small number of texts is, however, a
clear indication that there must be more proverbs in circulation still today in
the numerous Indian languages. All of this does not, of course, explain why
proverbs would not be more popular. Perhaps it is because Indian languages
appear to be less metaphorical, but recent scholarship has shown that the apparent lack of metaphors has been overstated (see Boas 1940: 232–239; Basso
1976: 93–121). However, Native Americans have a long tradition of handing
on collective wisdom by means of narratives, and this might at least somewhat explain the small amount of proverbs. And yet, such didactic and explanatory narratives also exist in other oral cultures. Why is it then that
African tribes have a wealth of proverbs while Indian tribes have very few to
hand on wisdom in short and memorable form? Nobody really knows, and
one can only wish that renewed interest in the proverbs of Native Americans
might yield some satisfactory answers.
Here then are at least a few texts from the best scholarship on the proverbial wisdom of Native Americans. The first group was collected by O. Morison during field research in the 1880s among the Tsimshian Indians from the
coastal region of British Columbia. Most of Morison’s but 16 annotated texts
are proverbial expressions, but some of the following might be looked at as
proverbs:
Tsimshian Proverbs
It is not good to be too covetous.
(While the Tsimshian Indians esteem wealth and prowess, they still advise people to regard only their own interests or to rely solely on their
own resources.)
A deer, although toothless, may accomplish something.
(The basic meaning is that one should not judge another person by outward appearances.)
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Proverbs
He is just sleeping on a deerskin.
(He is now enjoying a comfortable rest, but soon he will have to endure
hardships and privations.)
Go where your ears will be full of grubs.
(Said to a person who goes foolhardily to his own destruction. The saying means: Your head will be full of grubs like that of salmon that has
been thrown away by wasteful people without having served any
good purpose [not having been eaten].)
You think you are as handsome as the sun’s (moon’s) child.
(This expression is cited to signify a vain person [sun and moon have
the same name].)
You mistake the corner of the house for the door.
(Through this expression a gross mistake is signified.)
What will you eat when the snow is on the north side of the tree?
(This proverbial question refers to the end of the winter, when food is
scarce. It is a reproach to the careless and wasteful.)
He is enjoying the water lilies for a short time.
(A person is enjoying the good things in life but will be soon faced with
hardships and privations. The expression relates to a hunter, aiming
at a bear, who is feeding on water lilies,—a parable of the transientness of life’s pleasures.)
(Morison 1889)
Anthropologist Robert H. Lowie collected at least the following six proverbial
expressions from the Crow Indians of Montana in the early 1930s. It is to be assumed that he would have included bona fide proverbs had he but found them:
Crow Proverbial Expressions
When cottontails have long tails (or: when they are dragged).
(A proverbial phrase characterizing an impossibility.)
He is like the poor helper.
(This is applied to a person who proffers his assistance but who turns
out to be a bungler.)
When pine needles turn yellow.
(A proverbial phrase characterizing an impossibility.)
He is like the one who wanted to catch the porcupine.
(The expression applies to a person who persists in a hopeless enterprise.)
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111
He is like a man who did not run away until after he had been scalped.
(This expression refers to a person who is belated in his actions.)
He is like the turtle that was thrown into the water.
(The turtle pretends to be afraid of the water. The expression is therefore applied to a person feigning not to like what he really craves.)
(Lowie 1932)
Finally, there is a third richly annotated list of 12 proverbs collected by anthropologist Gary H. Gossen during the late 1960s among the Tzotzil Indians from Chamula, a community of Mayan Indians in southern Mexico:
Tzotzil Proverbs
The burro eats and always brays.
(This proverb is usually said by adults to children, particularly their own
children when they eat too much or want to take more than their fair
share of food. The proverb also accuses the greedy person of being lazy.)
The man does not see (people) well, but he kicks (them) well.
(This proverb applies to old men who still have a strong interest in sex.)
The ram always throws himself around.
(This proverb is usually said by adult men and women to ridicule the
behavior of drunks and to comment on drunkenness in general.)
It is going to rain; the cow is bawling.
(One meaning of the proverb is that of a weather aphorism, i.e., that the
cows somehow sense the atmospheric conditions that precede a rain
and bawl unusually long and loudly several hours before the shower.
But the proverb is also frequently used by male relatives and neighbors for ridiculing a woman when she cries in public.)
The road is still open, but it will close.
(The proverb is addressed to people who foul the road or path by defecating or urinating there. This emphasizes the principle of proper etiquette that requires one to go to a little-frequented place to eliminate.)
If one talks loudly, the cave will answer.
(The proverb may be said either by men or women to anyone who
passes wind audibly and excessively in a public place. It may also be
addressed to one who talks too much or too loudly when he is drunk.
The text ridicules antisocial behavior. Anybody that acts in such a
fashion does not deserve to live in a house but rather in a cave.)
(Gossen 1973)
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AFRICAN AMERICAN PROVERBS
In comparison to the dearth of Native American proverbs, there is a
plethora of African American proverbs with considerable scholarship on
them. Some proverbs current among African Americans can be traced back to
African and Caribbean sources (see Abrahams 1968). These early texts date
back to the time of the slave trade and some contain wisdom to deal with the
inhuman condition of slavery. The proverbs were used to teach common
sense for everyday survival, and at times they were employed as an indirect
way of criticizing the white landlords (see Daniel 1973). Joel Chandler Harris included a section of “Plantation Proverbs” in his classic book Uncle
Remus: His Songs and Sayings (1881 [1895]), of which the following texts
might serve as telling examples:
Termorrow may be de carriage-driver’s day for ploughin’.
Crow en corn can’t grow in de same fiel’.
De howlin’ dog know w’at he sees.
Dem w’at eats kin say grace.
Lazy fokes’ stummacks don’t git tired.
Better de gravy dan no grease ’tall.
Mole don’t see w’at his naber doin’.
De proudness un a man don’t count w’en his head’s cold.
Rooster makes mo’ racket dan de hen w’at lay de aig.
(Harris 1881 [1895])
But there are also important studies and collections of African American
proverbs from more recent times, indicating how they are used to express values, ethics, wit, and traditional wisdom in families (Daniel, SmithermanDonaldson, and Jeremiah 1987; see also Prahlad 1996). While African
Americans quite naturally make use of the general proverb stock in common
circulation in the United States, they also have some proverbs that are more
unique to their cultural experiences, as for example:
Your backyard should look as pretty as your front yard.
The blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice.
Don’t die with the dead.
If you dig a ditch for your brother, dig two.
Smiling faces sometimes lie.
Don’t let anyone outpick you in your own field.
What goes around, comes around.
Examples and Texts
113
A hard head makes a soft behind.
Leave half of what you know in your head.
One monkey don’t stop no show.
Your word is your bond.
(Daniel, Smitherman-Donaldson, and Jeremiah 1987)
Of 50 proverbs collected among African Americans in Pittsburgh and Detroit, only these nine texts do not belong to the common American proverbs.
After all, the two declaredly African American proverbs “The blacker the
berry, the sweeter the juice” and “What goes around, comes around” have become part of the general American proverb stock by now. But here are a few
more interesting texts collected by Alene Barnes-Harden around 1980 in Buffalo, New York. Included is the most universally known African American
proverb, namely “Different strokes for different folks” (my favorite proverb of
all, I might add):
Black is beautiful.
Don’t knock on your own door.
Dreams die first.
Keep your dress down and your draws (panties) up.
If it don’t fit, don’t force it.
Don’t forget where you came from.
Don’t let your head start something that your ass can’t handle.
If you don’t know much, you can’t do much.
Money talks and bullshit walks.
It takes one to know one.
You have to pay to play.
Always save a penny so you can buy a pot to piss in.
There is always a person greater or lesser than yourself.
Different strokes for different folks.
(Barnes-Harden 1980: 61–72)
Only this last proverb made it into the Dictionary of American Proverbs
(1992). Some of these texts might already have been in circulation during the
four decades from 1945 until 1985 when the data was collected for this large
compilation. But most likely people did not do field research at the time in
the inner city environments, thus missing important and differentiated material. There might also have been some censoring of sexual and scatological
texts. This puritan attitude on behalf of collectors has plagued proverb collections for centuries. Too many suggestive texts were left unrecorded, giving
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the impression that proverbs are at all times trim and proper. But nothing
could be further from the truth, as can be seen by just some of these fascinating proverbs listed here. There is clearly still much work to be done by the
paremiographers of the future. Regarding the United States, two major efforts
should certainly be to publish annotated proverb collections of Native Americans and African Americans. Their rich contents would assuredly reveal
many unique and welcome proverbs that have hitherto not been recorded,
studied, and treasured by scholars and the general public.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Book-length studies are listed in the major bibliography at the end of this book.
Cross-references at the ends of entries correspond to collections listed in the bibliography.
Abrahams, Roger D. 1968. “British West Indian Proverbs and Proverb Collections.”
Proverbium, no. 10: 239–243.
Arora, Shirley L. 1982. “Proverbs in Mexican American Tradition.” Aztlán 13:
43–69.
Atkinson, Mary. 1954. “Familiar Sayings of Old-Time Texas.” In Texas Folk and Folklore, ed. by Mody C. Boatright, Wilson M. Hudson, and Aiken Maxwell,
213–218. Dallas, Tex.: Southern Methodist University Press.
Barnes-Harden, Alene L. 1980. African American Verbal Arts: Their Nature and Communicative Interpretation (A Thematic Analysis). Diss. University of New York at
Buffalo (proverbs on pp. 61–72).
Basso, Keith. 1976. “‘Wise Words’ of the Western Apache: Metaphor and Semantic
Theory.” In Meaning in Anthropology, ed. by K. Basso and Henry Selby, 93–121.
Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.
Boas, Franz. 1940. “Metaphorical Expression in the Language of the Kwakiutl Indians.” In Language and Culture, by F. Boas, 232–239. New York: The Free Press.
Briggs, Charles L. 1985. “The Pragmatics of Proverb Performances in New Mexican
Spanish.” American Anthropologist 87: 793–810; also in Mieder 1994: 317–349.
Daniel, Jack L. 1973. “Towards an Ethnography of Afroamerican Proverbial Usage.”
Black Lines 2: 3–12.
Daniel, Jack L., Geneva Smitherman-Donaldson, and Milford A. Jeremiah. 1987.
“‘Makin’ a Way outa no Way’: The Proverb Tradition in the Black Experience.”
Journal of Black Studies 17: 482–508.
Doyle, Charles C. 1996. “On ‘New’ Proverbs and the Conservativeness of Proverb
Dictionaries.” Proverbium 13: 69–84; also in Mieder 2003: 85–98.
Dundes, Alan. 1980. “Seeing Is Believing.” In Interpreting Folklore, ed. by A. Dundes,
86–92. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Ek, Sven B. 1964. Den som kommer först till kvarns – ett ordspåk och dess bakgrund.
Lund, Sweden: Gleerup.
Examples and Texts
115
Gossen, Gary H. 1973. “Chamula Tzotzil Proverbs: Neither Fish nor Fowl.” In
Meaning in Mayan Languages. Ethnolinguistic Studies, ed. by Munro S. Edmonson,
205–233. The Hague: Mouton; also in Mieder 1994: 351–392.
Hardie, Margaret. 1929. “Proverbs and Proverbial Expressions Current in the United
States East of the Missouri and North of the Ohio Rivers.” American Speech 4:
461–472.
Harris, Joel Chandler. 1881 (1895). “Plantation Proverbs.” In Uncle Remus: His Songs
and Sayings, by J.C. Harris, 173–177. New York: D. Appleton.
Jente, Richard. 1931–1932. “The American Proverb.” American Speech 7: 342–348.
Lowie, Robert H. 1932. “Proverbial Expressions Among Crow Indians.” American
Anthropologist 34: 739–740.
McKenzie, Alyce M. 1996. “‘Different Strokes for Different Folks’: America’s Quintessential Postmodern Proverb.” Theology Today 53: 201–212; also in Mieder
2003: 311–324.
Mieder, Wolfgang. 1987. “History and Interpretation of a Proverb about Human
Nature: ‘Big Fish Eat Little Fish.’” In Tradition and Innovation in Folk Literature,
by W. Mieder, 178–228 and 259–268 (notes). Hanover, N.H.: University Press of
New England.
———. 1989a. “‘Ein Bild sagt mehr als tausend Worte’: Ursprung und Üblerlieferung eines amerikanischen Lehnsprichworts.” Proverbium 6: 25–37, also in Mieder
1992: 191–201.
———. 1989b. “Proverbs of the Native Americans: A Prize Competition.” Western
Folklore 48: 256–260.
———. 1990. “‘A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words’: From Advertising Slogan to
American Proverb.” Southern Folklore 47: 207–225; also in Mieder 1993: 135–151.
———. 1993a. “‘Good Proverbs Make Good Vermonters’: The Flavor of Regional
Proverbs.” In Proverbs Are Never Out of Season: Popular Wisdom in the Modern Age,
by W. Mieder, 173–192. New York: Oxford University Press.
———. 1993b. “‘The Apple Doesn’t Fall Far from the Tree’: History of a German
Proverb in the Anglo-American World.” Midwestern Folklore 19: 69–98; also in
Mieder 2000b, 109–144.
———. 1993c. “‘The Grass Is Always Greener on the Other Side of the Fence’: An
American Proverb of Discontent.” Proverbium 10: 151–184; also in Mieder 1994:
515–542.
———. 1993d. “‘The Only Good Indian Is a Dead Indian’: History and Meaning
of a Proverbial Stereotype.” Journal of American Folklore 106: 38–60; also in
Mieder 1997: 138–159 and 221–227 (notes).
———. 1996. “‘No Tickee, No Washee’: Subtleties of a Proverbial Slur.” Western
Folklore 55: 1–40; also in Mieder 1997: 160–189 and 227–235 (notes).
———. 2000a. “‘First come, First Served’: Proverbial Wisdom from the World of
the Millers and the Mills.” In The Mills at Winooski Falls: Winooski and Burlington, Vermont, ed. by Laura Krawitt, 128–134 and 203 (references). Winooski, Vt.:
Onion River Press.
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———. 2003. “‘Good Fences Make Good Neighbors’: History and Significance of
an Ambiguous Proverb.” Folklore (London) 114: 155–179.
Morison, O. 1889. “Tsimshian Proverbs.” Journal of American Folklore 2: 285–286.
Nicolaisen, W.F.H. 1994. “The Proverbial Scot.” Proverbium 11: 197–206.
Robinson, F.N. 1945. “Irish Proverbs and Irish National Character.” Modern Philology 43: 1–10; also in Mieder and Dundes 1981 (1994): 284–299.
Smith, Morgan, and A.W. Eddins. 1937. “Wise Saws from Texas.” In Straight Texas,
ed. by J. Frank Dobie and Mody C. Boatright, 239–244. Dallas, Tex.: Southern
Methodist University Press.
Taylor, Archer. 1971. “‘Leave no Stone Unturned’ or an Afternoon with a Historical
Dictionary of Proverbs.” Proverbium, no. 16: 553–556.
Q
Three
Scholarship and Approaches
A description of the present state of proverb scholarship and its future direction must also consider past accomplishments. The interest in proverbs can,
after all, be traced back to Sumerian cuneiform tablets and the Greek and
Roman philosophical and rhetorical writings. Humanists like Erasmus of
Rotterdam and later scholars have all built on previous research as they put
forth their own collections and studies of proverbs. There exists an impressive
history of the two major aspects of proverb scholarship, that is, the collection
of proverbs (paremiography) and the study of proverbs (paremiology). Naturally these two branches are two sides of the same coin, and some of the very
best research on proverbs combines the two most convincingly. Although the
identification of traditional texts as proverbs and their arrangement in collections of various types are of paramount importance, proverb scholars have always known that the interpretation of proverbs in oral or written speech is of
equal significance.
The remarks in this section can only scratch the proverbial surface of the
retrospective and prospective aspects of modern paremiology. At least some
major issues of past, present, and future proverb research will be discussed together with representative examples of recent scholarship that can serve as
models for what lies ahead. My remarks are divided into three major categories: (1) fundamental resources, such as special journals, essay volumes, and
bibliographies dedicated to proverb research; (2) the status of extant proverb
collections and the direction of paremiography in the future; and (3) the impressive results of twentieth-century proverb scholarship and a glimpse at the
desiderata for paremiology during the twenty-first century. While the first
two categories are not subdivided, the third is actually made up of 12 sections: comprehensive overviews of paremiology; empiricism and paremiolog117
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ical minima; linguistic and semiotic considerations; performance (speech
acts) in social contexts; issues of culture, folklore, and history; politics, stereotypes, and worldview; sociology, psychology, and psychiatry; use in folk
narratives and literature; religion and wisdom literature; pedagogy and language teaching; iconography: proverbs as art; and mass media and popular
culture. These headings certainly indicate that paremiology is a multifaceted
and fascinating enterprise that in its complexity encompasses many fields of
study (for the following discussions see also Mieder 1997).
PROVERB JOURNALS, ESSAY VOLUMES, AND
BIBLIOGRAPHIES
The widespread interest in proverbs throughout the world is thoroughly
documented in a number of international bibliographies as well as the 25 issues of the “old” Proverbium, edited by Matti Kuusi from 1965 to 1975 in
Helsinki and available in my two-volume reprint (1987); the short-lived
Proverbium Paratum, edited by Vilmos Voigt from 1980 to 1989 in only four
issues in Budapest; the “new” Proverbium: Yearbook of International Proverb
Scholarship, edited by me since 1984 in Burlington, Vermont; the Spanish annual Paremia, edited by Julia Sevilla Muñoz since 1993 in Madrid; and the
innovative, electronically published De Proverbio, edited by Teodor Flonta
from 1995 to 2000 in Tasmania, Australia. It is a shame that De Proverbio
ceased publication with the retirement of Teodor Flonta, since it made invaluable articles available on the Internet. But together these annual publications have established a close net of international scholars, and it is to be
hoped that additional yearbooks might be started in other countries. A yearly
publication devoted to African proverbs is doubtlessly needed, and the same
holds true for the rich field of Asian proverbs. The particularly active proverb
scholars in the Baltic States would also be well served to have their own periodic publications with valuable interpretive essays, collections, bibliographies, and book reviews. In any case, these yearbooks would enhance the
regional, national, and international study of proverbs and result in a comparatively oriented synchronic and diachronic proverb scholarship of the
highest quality in a global environment.
Numerous informative volumes of proverb essays by different authors have
also been published. In fact, there is a plethora of them in the broader area of
phraseology that includes all types of collocations (see the numerous entries
in the third section of the bibliography). In the narrower field of paremiology,
there are essay volumes that give a convenient overview of various aspects,
ranging from definitional, structural, and semiotic studies to analyses of the
Scholarship and Approaches
119
origin, history, and dissemination of individual proverbs, and from their use
in literary works or psychological testing to their depiction in art as well as the
modern mass media. Alan Dundes and I edited such a volume entitled The
Wisdom of Many: Essays on the Proverb (1981 [1994]) that included Englishlanguage essays primarily from the first half of the twentieth century. On the
other hand, my edited volume of Wise Words: Essays on the Proverb (1994) features only essays that were published after 1970, and now there is also my
third edited essay collection of the most recent scholarship entitled Cognition,
Comprehension, and Communication: A Decade of North American Proverb
Studies (1990–2000) (2003). Together these three “casebooks” present 67 of
the most important and representative essays written in English on a broad
array of anthropological, folkloristic, historical, linguistic, literary, philological, psychological, and sociological subjects. While the scope of eight additional volumes edited by Naiade Anido, Des proverbes . . . à l’affut (1983),
Grigorii L’vovich Permiakov, Paremiologicheskie issledovaniia: Sbornik statei
(1984), François Suard and Claude Buridant, Richesse du proverbe, 2 vols.
(1984), Annette Sabban and Jan Wirrer, Sprichwörter und Redensarten im interkulturellen Vergleich (1991), Cristina Vallini, La pratica e la grammatica: Viaggio nella linguistica del proverbio (1989), Peter Ďurčo, Europhras 97:
Phraseology and Paremiology (1998), Rupprecht S. Baur, Christoph Chlosta,
and Elisabeth Piirainen, Wörter in Bildern—Bilder in Wörtern: Beiträge zur
Phraseologie und Sprichwortforschung (1999), and Dietrich Hartmann and Jan
Wirrer, “Wer A sägt, muss auch B sägen”: Beiträge zur Phraseologie und Sprichwortforschung (2002) is also deliberately interdisciplinary and comparative,
there are others that address proverbs from particular cultures and languages,
as for example the essay volumes edited by Wolfgang Mieder, Ergebnisse der
[deutschen] Sprichwörterforschung (1978), Willem Saayman, Embracing the
Baobab Tree: The African Proverb in the 21st Century (1997), and Salvatore C.
Trovato, Proverbi locuzioni modi di dire nel dominio linguistico italiano (1999).
It would be quite useful to have other such volumes available, and essay volumes containing articles dealing on a cross-cultural level with misogyny, stereotypes, religion, animals, and so on in proverbs are also needed. Such
studies would be welcome research tools for students and scholars of proverbs
alike and would make largely inaccessible publications available in thematically packaged casebooks. Naturally such essay volumes should contain informative introductions and useful bibliographies that list special collections and
additional analytical studies.
Turning to bibliographical matters, it can be stated that of all verbal folklore genres, the bibliographies regarding proverbs are the most comprehensive. Previous bibliographies of proverb collections were subsumed by Wilfrid
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Bonser’s still valuable Proverb Literature: A Bibliography of Works Relating to
Proverbs (1930 [1967]) and Otto Moll’s superb Sprichwörterbibliographie
(1958), with the latter registering over 9,000 references. My own annual “International Bibliography of New and Reprinted Proverb Collections” that has
appeared in Proverbium: Yearbook of International Proverb Scholarship since
1984 has by now cited well over 1,500 publications, among them some extremely important reprints of earlier collections as well as a large number of
significant new national and comparative collections. There are, however, also
numerous smaller collections intended for the popular book market. Scholars
must not forget that the general reader enjoys the proverbial wisdom of certain national, ethnic, religious, occupational, or thematic (animals, love,
women) groups. The phenomenon of popular proverb collections for the
mass market (general readers, tourists, etc.) deserves a serious analysis, since it
definitely plays an influential role in disseminating proverbs.
As helpful as these yearly bibliographies have been, there is a definite
need to assemble updated national bibliographies of proverb collections
with explanatory annotations. A superb two-volume example is Anatolii
Mikhailovich Bushui’s Paremiologiia Uzbekistana (1978–1980). It registers
840 annotated paremiographical and paremiological publications of Uzbekistan in central Asia. Bushui includes books and articles on proverbs, proverbial expressions, proverbial comparisons, clichés, idioms, and phraseology in
general. But there is yet another incredible bibliographical masterpiece,
namely the two massive volumes by Joachim Lengert, Romanische Phraseologie und Parömiologie (1999), which has registered and annotated over 17,000
phraseological and paremiological publications of all Romance languages on
2,132 pages. Both of these bibliographies are models to be emulated for other
regions and languages. There are, of course, also smaller but valuable bibliographies dealing with collections of ethnic proverbs, stereotypical expressions, proverbs about women, and so on. Many more restricted bibliographies
of this type are needed, but it is also high time that a critically annotated international bibliography of the world’s major proverb collections be put together. As paremiographers work more and more comparatively, they need to
know which collections are the most reliable and inclusive for as many languages as possible.
The bibliographical status of paremiology is by comparison with that of
paremiography in an even better state. There is my International Proverb
Scholarship: An Annotated Bibliography, 4 vols. (1982–2001), in which 7,368
books, dissertations, and articles have been registered with detailed and critical comments as well as extensive name, subject, and proverb indices. These
massive volumes contain the major accomplishments of proverb scholars dur-
Scholarship and Approaches
121
ing the past 200 years, and the most recent publications are listed in my
yearly “International Proverb Scholarship: An Updated Bibliography” in
Proverbium: Yearbook of International Proverb Scholarship with the impressive
number of well over 300 entries per year. But this is not to say that specialized
annotated bibliographies are not needed, for which the Catalogo de bibliografia paremiologica española (1992) by José de Jaime Gómez and José María
Jaime Lorén, and my African Proverb Scholarship: An Annotated Bibliography
(1994) might serve as examples and models. There are also some specialized
bibliographies for certain specific areas or subject matters, for example the
three annotated bibliographies that I have coauthored with George B. Bryan,
Proverbs in World Literature: A Bibliography (1996), with Janet Sobieski,
Proverb Iconography: An International Bibliography (1998), and once again
with Janet Sobieski, Proverbs and the Social Sciences: An Annotated International Bibliography (2003). But many additional specialized bibliographies on
such matters as misogyny in proverbs, worldview expressed through proverbs,
the weather in proverbs, and God (or religion) in proverbs would be welcome. The list of possibilities is endless. In the meantime the indices included
in my volumes of International Proverb Scholarship will help scholars to find
those publications that include rich bibliographical information (check under
the entry “bibliography”). It will always be a worthwhile service to put together additional bibliographies, even in the age of Web sites and electronic
databases.
PROVERB COLLECTIONS AND FUTURE PAREMIOGRAPHY
While there is a steady stream of new proverb collections, diachronically
oriented scholars are also well served by the invaluable reprints of major collections of earlier centuries. Especially for some of the major European languages, proverb collections from the late fifteenth century onwards are
available as reprints. This is not the place to comment on individual reprinted
volumes of these and other languages, since they are all listed in my annual
bibliographies of Proverbium: Yearbook of International Proverb Scholarship
(for additional information see Mieder 1990). Instead, two European multivolume proverb collections should be mentioned. There is the gargantuan effort of Hans Walther and Paul Gerhard Schmidt, who have assembled
approximately 150,000 Latin proverbs and their variants from the Middle
Ages through the seventeenth century in their seminal nine-volume Proverbia
sententiaeque latinitatis medii aevi. Lateinische Sprichwörter und Sentenzen des
Mittelalters (1963–1986). Since many of the proverbs were common
throughout Europe either in the Latin original or through loan translations
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into the vernacular languages, these volumes represent a unique research tool
for all historical and comparative paremiographers. For the vernacular languages of the Middle Ages another giant paremiographical project has been
completed. A team of scholars under the direction of Ricarda Liver worked
for 40 years at Berne, Switzerland, on a 13-volume Thesaurus proverbiorum
medii aevi. Lexikon der Sprichwörter des germanisch-romanischen Mittelalters
(1995–2002) based on the materials of the Swiss paremiographer Samuel
Singer (1860–1948). While the major language of this lexicon is German,
texts in Greek, Latin, French, Provençal, Italian, Catalan, Spanish, Portuguese, Icelandic, Swedish, Danish, English, and Dutch are cited. This multivolume research tool has unlocked the intricacies of medieval proverbs,
leaving paremiographers with the hope that similar mammoth projects might
be undertaken on a comparative basis for the proverbs of later centuries and
other linguistic families of the world. With the use of the computer and
proper funding, teams of scholars might be able to accomplish such desirable
tasks in the future.
In the meantime there is a great need for single-language historical proverb
dictionaries based on the lexicographical classification system developed by
the American paremiographer par excellence Bartlett Jere Whiting in his
celebrated and massive Proverbs, Sentences, and Proverbial Phrases from English Writings Mainly Before 1500 (1968) and his many subsequent AngloAmerican proverb collections (see Taylor and Whiting 1958; Whiting 1977,
1989). Whiting actually adapted the methodology of Morris Palmer Tilley’s
A Dictionary of the Proverbs in England in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (1950), and both were followed by an unequalled four-volume Polish
collection, Nowa ksiega przyslów i wyrazen przyslowiowych polskich (1969–1978)
edited by Julian Krzyzanowski and Stanislaw Swirko. These collections are
historical dictionaries in which the individual proverbs and proverbial expressions are arranged alphabetically according to key words. For each proverb
the editors supply historical references from the Middle Ages on, often including the earlier classical and/or biblical references. At the end of such historical monographs on individual proverbs, cross-references to other proverb
collections of the language involved are cited as well. Even though this methodology for major historical proverb collections has been long established, it
is being followed more or less exclusively only in the Anglo-American world
and has resulted in several major proverb dictionaries (in addition to Whiting, see Dent 1981, 1984; Simpson 1982 [1998]; Smith 1935 [1970, 3rd ed.
by F.P. Wilson]).
A definite goal of serious paremiographers must be the establishment of
national proverb compendia, preferably based on historical principles. The
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123
time-consuming effort is best dealt with by scholars working in teams, as can
be seen by two industrious research groups in the Baltic States. Arvo Krikmann, Ingrid Sarv, and their colleagues have published the seminal fivevolume national Estonian proverb collection Eesti vanasõnad (1980–1988). A
similar five-volume venture is well on its way in Lithuania, formerly under
the directorship of the recently deceased Kazys Grigas. When finished, the
Lithuanian people will have the superb national proverb collection Lietuviu
patarles ir priežodžiai (2000– ) at their disposal. The Germans already have a
massive five-volume Deutsches Sprichwörter-Lexikon (1867–1880 [1964]) by
Karl Friedrich Wilhelm Wander available to them. All existing proverb collections of a national language, including regional and dialect collections,
should be integrated into such large compendia, adding almost automatically
a historical component. But of special importance would be to include as
many historical references from the print media as possible.
European paremiographers have published several major international
proverb collections in the past few years. Matti Kuusi, in cooperation with
seven other scholars, took the lead with the exemplary collection Proverbia
Septentrionalia: 900 Balto-Finnic Proverb Types with Russian, Baltic, German
and Scandinavian Parallels (1985). This significant synchronic and comparative volume registers the common proverbs of the six Balto-Finnic peoples of
Finno-Ugrian origin (the Finns, Karelians, Estonians, Votes, Vespians, and
Livonians), who form a linguistically and geographically unified group between the Scandinavians, Balts, and Russians. The proverb types are cited in
English, and the proverbs in their original languages under each type are
arranged on the basis of their distribution in the Balto-Finnic languages, always beginning with those proverbs occurring in all six languages and ending
with those found in only one. Where possible, a Russian, Baltic, German, and
Scandinavian parallel of the proverb type is cited. After the Balto-Finnic variants, bibliographical sources are listed. Of much value are also Gyula Paczolay’s European Proverbs in 55 Languages with Equivalents in Arabic, Persian,
Sanskrit, Chinese and Japanese (1997) with 106 monographs citing the
proverbs in their original languages with English translations, and Emanuel
Strauss’s massive three-volume Dictionary of European Proverbs (1994) with
its 1804 proverbs in dozens of languages (see also the “Multilingual Proverb
Collections” section in the bibliography). There exist many similar comparative collections where English is not the base language, and, of course, there
are also dozens of bilingual proverb collections that are of special use to translators and foreign-language students (see section five of the bibliography).
So much for the Euro-American picture, but how do matters look for the
many languages of the African continent? Missionaries and anthropologists
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have long collected proverbs indigenous to certain African tribes, and this
work has resulted in many valuable collections. Of special merit are Cyril L.
Nyembezi, Zulu Proverbs (1963); M.A. Hamutyinei and A.B. Plangger,
Tsumo-Shumo: Shona Proverbial Lore and Wisdom (1974); Albert Scheven,
Swahili Proverbs (1981); and Oyekan Owomoyela, “A Ki i”: Yoruba Proscriptive and Prescriptive Proverbs (1988). Special mention, however, must be made
of Matti Kuusi’s collection Ovambo Proverbs with African Parallels (1970),
since this scholar has provided comparative African commentaries to the
Ovambo proverbs. Kuusi observes that “The number of common African
proverbs appears proportionately smaller than that of common European or
Eurasian proverbs, but the establishment of a common Bantu tradition and
that of the most general African proverbs provides a necessary basis for the determination of whether or not the peoples of the three ancient continents
have a common heritage of proverbs” (p. 13). The time has surely come to assemble major comparative proverb collections based on the numerous previously published collections of small linguistic groups. Research teams need to
work on this major task making use of computer technology. Only through
such work will questions regarding the geographical distribution and commonality of African proverbs be answered. What proverbs are known
throughout Africa? How old are they? Are they indigenous to that continent?
How do they relate to the common stock of European proverbs that were disseminated by missionaries? A step in the right direction is Ryszard Pachocinski’s Proverbs of Africa: Human Nature in the Nigerian Oral Tradition (1996)
with its exposition and analysis of 2,600 proverbs from 64 African peoples.
The first step should be the establishment of a computer bank of all African
proverbs collected thus far. While valuable individual collections and studies
of African proverbs exist, a comparative analysis of all these African texts is
highly desirable. The good news is that such an “African Proverbs Project” is
now in progress under the tutelage of Joseph Healey and Stan Nussbaum (see
Saayman 1997).
A similar picture arises for the Arabic, Asian, Indic, and other major language groups, which also have a long and complex history of a rich common
proverb stock. There are clearly numerous proverb collections in the native
languages that are, unfortunately, inaccessible to most Western scholars. But
such collections as Young H. Yoo’s Wisdom of the Far East (1972) and the
many bilingual collections (see bibliography) have shown that related languages of Asia, India, or the Middle East have many proverbs in common just
as there are general European proverbs. Such synchronic (and possibly also
diachronic) comparative collections with their scholarly apparatus of indices,
frequency analyses, sources, geographical distribution, and so on are of great
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importance in trying to find international proverb types. Collections of this
scope advance the structural, semantic, and semiotic studies of comparative
paremiographers like Grigorii L’vovich Permiakov (see Grzybek 2000), Matti
Kuusi, Outi Lauhakangas, and Gyula Paczolay (Permiakov 1970 [1979];
Kuusi 1972; Lauhakangas 2001; Paczolay 1997) in their search for and creation of an international type system of proverbs.
COMPREHENSIVE OVERVIEWS OF PAREMIOLOGY
Any interest in proverbs whatsoever leads quite naturally to the question of
what makes proverbs “click,” that is, what differentiates these short texts from
normal utterances or such subgenres as proverbial expressions, proverbial
comparisons, twin formulas, and wellerisms. When inquiring about the definition, origin, history, dissemination, language, structure, meaning, use, and
function of such phraseological units or phraseologisms, one enters the realm
of proverb scholarship or paremiology, as it is called by its Greek technical
term (the Greek “paremia” is equivalent to the Latin “proverbium”) in differentiation from the more limited concerns of proverb collecting or paremiography. While there exist one-volume comprehensive surveys of the two areas
of proverb studies for many languages and cultures, it is perhaps fair to say
that the great German paremiographer Karl Friedrich Wilhelm Wander
(1803–1879), acclaimed compiler of the Deutsches Sprichwörter-Lexikon
(1867–1880 [1964]) with its five large volumes and 250,000 proverbs and
proverbial expressions with sources and parallel texts from other European
languages, was also the first “modern” paremiologist with his encompassing
study Das Sprichwort, betrachtet nach Form und Wesen, für Schule und Leben,
als Einleitung zu einem volksthümlichen Sprichwörterschatz (1836 [1983]).
Not quite 20 years later, Richard Chenevix Trench (1807–1886) published a
similar English-language volume On the Lessons of Proverbs (1853 [2003]),
which in its many English and American editions became a standard work for
paremiologists interested in the definition, origin, form, style, content,
morality, and theology of proverbs. Two outstanding inclusive studies of the
proverb in the early part of the twentieth century are F. Edward Hulme’s
Proverb Lore: Being a Historical Study of the Similarities, Contrasts, Topics,
Meanings, and Other Facets of Proverbs, Truisms, and Pithy Sayings, as Expressed by the People of Many Lands and Times (1902 [1968]) and Friedrich
Seiler’s Deutsche Sprichwörterkunde (1922 [1967]). Similar books exist for
other languages and cultures, to be sure: Jacques Pineaux, Proverbes et dictons
français (1956); Louis Combet, Recherches sur le “refranero” castillan (1971);
Matti Kuusi, Parömiologische Betrachtungen (1957); Lutz Röhrich and Wolf-
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gang Mieder, Sprichwort (1977); Jean Cauvin, Comprendre: Les Proverbes
(1981); Cezar Tabarcea, Poetica proverbului (1982); Maria Conca, Paremiologia (1987); Julia Sevilla Muñoz, Hacia una aproximación conceptual de las
paremias francesas y españolas (1988); Katsuaki Takeda, Kotowaza no Retorikku
(1992); and Agnes Szemerkényi, “Közmondás nem hazug szólás”: A proverbiumok használatának lehetöségei (1994). But paremiologists are fortunate in
having a seminal study dedicated to international paremiology in an accessible language that must be regarded as a “classic” and hitherto unsurpassed
treatise of the subject. If there ever were a bible of proverb scholarship, this
book would be it by any standard of comparison.
Archer Taylor’s (1890–1973) book The Proverb (1931; repr. as The
Proverb and an Index to “The Proverb” in 1962; and repr. again in 1985 with
an introduction and bibliography by Wolfgang Mieder), comprised of a
mere 223 small pages, has guided scholars and students around the world in
their proverb studies. In short but pregnant chapters with many suggestions
for further research, Taylor presents a complete overview of the rich field of
international paremiology. The first section concerns itself with the origins
of the proverb, and the individual chapters deal with the problems of definition, metaphorical proverbs, proverbial types, variations, proverbs based
on narratives, proverbs and folk-verse, proverbs and literature, loan translations, biblical proverbs, and classical proverbs. In the second section on the
content of proverbs, Taylor analyzes customs and superstitions reflected in
proverbs, historical proverbs, legal proverbs, blasons populaires (i.e., stereotypes), weather proverbs, medical proverbs, conventional phrases, and
proverbial prophecies. The third section addresses primarily the style of
proverbs (meter, metaphor, personification, parallelism, rhyme, pun, etc.),
but there are also chapters on dialogue proverbs, epigrammatic proverbs, national and ethnic traits, ethical values, obscene proverbs, and a review of
proverbs in European literature. The fourth section is divided into three
chapters devoted to various aspects of proverbial phrases, wellerisms, and
proverbial comparisons. The book, filled with examples from many languages, contains generous bibliographical references, and three years after its
publication, Taylor published an invaluable 105-page An Index to “The
Proverb” (1934), which has been included in both the 1962 and 1985
reprints. There can be no doubt that this book belongs in every research library of the world and on the bookshelf of every paremiologist.
With Taylor as doyen of proverb studies in the United States in the 1930s
and beyond, paremiology flourished there to a remarkable degree. Taylor’s
many additional publications were at least in part republished in two essay volumes, namely Comparative Studies in Folklore: Asia–Europe–America (1972)
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and Selected Writings on Proverbs (1975). Taylor’s friend and at times coauthor,
Bartlett Jere Whiting (1904–1995), rose to equal heights both as a paremiographer and paremiologist. His fundamental studies on the origin (1931), nature (1932), and study (1939) of proverbs have been edited in one volume by
Joseph Harris and me under the title of When Evensong and Morrowsong Accord: Three Essays on the Proverb (1994; a bibliography of Whiting’s publications is appended). The three articles in this book comprise yet another major
treatise on the proverb, with Taylor’s as well as Whiting’s insights into the complexities and intricacies of proverbs being as valid today as they were some decades ago. They certainly represent the cornerstone of modern international
paremiology and its future. It is of little wonder, then, that basically every serious publication on proverbs throughout the world pays homage in some form
or another to these two great scholars.
For me to do the same to all the many outstanding scholars, colleagues,
and friends who are presently at work as paremiologists in all corners of the
world is patently impossible. But in the remaining pages of this section of my
book, I will attempt to summarize some of the major trends of recent scholarship with brief references to major publications, while at the same time focusing on some innovative studies that need to be undertaken in the future.
My comments are somewhat selective, and no slight to any scholar, culture,
or language is intended by these remarks. The emphasis remains on Englishlanguage publications, since this book is intended for a wide, general, and
global readership.
EMPIRICISM AND PAREMIOLOGICAL MINIMA
As Peter Grzybek and Christoph Chlosta have shown in their pioneering
essay on “Grundlagen der empirischen Sprichwortforschung” (1993, Foundations of Empirical Proverb Study), scholars must base their studies on demographic research methods utilizing questionnaires and sophisticated
statistical analyses in order to establish lists of those proverbs that are actually
known and continue to be in current use (see Levin 1968–1969; Mieder
1985). This research methodology will also help to establish the proverbiality
of the new proverbs of the modern age (see Doyle 1996). There is thus a definite need for increased global field research, from highly technological societies to those parts of the world where life continues to be based on
traditional and rural life. Such empirical work will, of course, also help to establish “proverbial minima” for many languages and cultures, as Grigorii
L’vovich Permiakov (1919–1983), one of the greatest theoretical paremiologists of the twentieth century, suggested already in the early 1970s.
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Utilizing his paremiological experiment conducted in Moscow in 1970,
Permiakov was able to establish the general currency of 1,494 phraseological
units among modern inhabitants of that city. Included were 268 proper
proverbs, and the rest of the texts were proverbial expressions, proverbial comparisons, wellerisms, fables, anecdotes, riddles, slogans, weather signs, superstitions, allusions to fairy tales, oaths, and so on. Permiakov’s list shows clearly
that many long folk narratives have currency as short phraseological remnants
(allusions). All of these texts are part of the general cultural literacy of Russians
(Permiakov 1971). Native as well as foreign speakers of Russian need to know
them in order to communicate effectively in that language. Permiakov subsequently established a so-called paremiological minimum of 300 such texts
based on this experiment (Permiakov 1982 [1989]) and published it with an
explanatory introduction and many notes as 300 obshcheupotrebitel’nykh
russkikh poslovits i pogovorok (1985; see Grzybek and Eismann 1984:
351–358). German and Bulgarian translations have appeared that enable foreign-language instructors to teach their students the most frequently used Russian proverbs, proverbial expressions, proverbial comparisons, and so on.
Similar paremiological minima of such common phraseological units of
other national languages are now being established by paremiographers, to
wit the very useful results for Croatian, Czech, English, German, and Hungarian. Many proverbs of classical, biblical, or medieval origin will belong to
the paremiological minima of European languages. But there will still be
room for national proverbs among a list of about 300 texts. Since these texts
are identified by statistical frequency studies of actual use in oral and written
communication, they become a very useful list for foreign-language instruction. After all, it is important to teach the most well-known and current
proverbs to foreign-language learners rather than obscure and seldom used
texts. The proverbs that belong to the paremiological minimum of a language
are clearly part of the cultural literacy of native speakers, and it behooves foreign-language teachers to include them in their instruction of language and
culture (Mieder 1992; Tóthné Litovkina 1998). Demoscopic research will
also finally give scholars a much better idea as to which of the thousands of
proverbs listed in the older collections are still in actual use today. Paremiography cannot remain a science that looks primarily backwards and works only
with texts of times gone by. Modern paremiographers can and should also assemble proverb collections that include the texts of the twentieth and twentyfirst centuries, as is the case at least in part with A Dictionary of American
Proverbs (Mieder, Kingsbury, and Harder 1992).
Regarding the English language, no precise paremiological minimum has
been established thus far. However, some empirically oriented work has been
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done (Mieder 1992: Tóthné Litovkina 1994), indicating that the following
seventy-five proverbs are certainly used with high frequency in the United
States today:
Absence makes the heart grow fonder.
An apple a day keeps the doctor away.
The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Beauty is only skin deep.
Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.
Beggars can’t be choosers.
A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
Birds of a feather flock together.
The early bird catches the worm.
Don’t judge a book by its cover.
Don’t cross the bridge till you come to it.
New brooms sweep clean.
Business before pleasure.
You cannot have your cake and eat it too.
Chickens come home to roost.
Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched.
Spare the rod and spoil the child.
Every cloud has a silver lining.
Easy come, easy go.
First come, first served.
Too many cooks spoil the broth.
Curiosity killed the cat.
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Let sleeping dogs lie.
You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.
Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.
All’s well that ends well.
Like father, like son.
Big fish eat little fish.
A fool and his money are soon parted.
A friend in need is a friend indeed.
Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.
All that glitters is not gold.
The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.
Many hands make light work.
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Proverbs
One hand washes the other.
Haste makes waste.
Make hay while the sun shines.
Two heads are better than one.
He who hesitates is lost.
Honesty is the best policy.
Don’t change horses in the middle of the stream (mid-stream).
You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.
Strike while the iron is hot.
Better late than never.
He who laughs last, laughs best.
Live and let live.
Look before you leap.
Love is blind.
Misery loves company.
Money talks.
A penny saved is a penny earned.
Penny wise and pound foolish.
A picture is worth a thousand words.
A watched pot never boils.
Practice makes perfect.
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
When it rains, it pours.
When in Rome, do as the Romans do.
Easier said than done.
If the shoe fits, wear it.
Out of sight, out of mind.
Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.
A stitch in time saves nine.
A rolling stone gathers no moss.
If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.
It takes two to tango.
Time is money.
Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.
Waste not, want not.
Still waters run deep.
The squeaky wheel gets the grease.
Where there’s a will, there’s a way.
Two wrongs don’t make a right.
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These texts would represent 25 percent of an Anglo-American paremiological
minimum of 300 texts, and I am quite convinced that every one of these
proverbs would be on the minimum list in a wide-scale demographic study
with frequency analysis.
In the meantime there is also the fascinating study that Kimberly J. Lau
carried out by making use of the LEXIS/NEXIS computer database of over
2,300 full-text information sources from U.S. and overseas newspapers, magazines, journals, newsletters, and the like (Lau 1996). She established a list of
188 proverbs for which frequent citations are listed in the four major AngloAmerican proverb dictionaries. She then took these proverbs and checked
how many “hits” would be registered on this large electronic database that
goes back to the early 1970s. Thus the results cover a time frame of about 25
years. Here are the “top 10” proverbs with the number of hits for each text:
Enough is enough.
Time will tell.
First come, first served.
Forgive and forget.
Time is money.
History repeats itself.
Time flies.
Better late than never.
Out of sight, out of mind.
Boys will be boys.
(15,808)
(14,226)
(13,050)
(5,097)
(3,770)
(3,713)
(3,673)
(3,493)
(2,902)
(2,103)
Lau goes on to present the “hit” numbers for the remaining 178 proverbs, with
her list basically including the 75 proverbs listed above. Of course, these texts
from the print media do not necessarily show anything about their currency in
oral speech. While care should be taken not to interpret these texts too quickly
as indicators of American values or worldview (see Winick 2001), they certainly include most of the common Anglo-American proverbs in actual use
today. Until a nationwide research project with questionnaires is started to establish an American paremiological minimum, the materials summarized here
present a good idea of the favorite proverbs in the English language.
LINGUISTIC AND SEMIOTIC CONSIDERATIONS
Theoretical proverb scholarship has been influenced to a large degree by
the semiotic studies of Grigorii L’vovich Permiakov, notably by his Russian
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book Ot pogovorki do skazki: Zametki po obshchei teorii klishe (1970) and its
English translation From Proverb to Folk-Tale: Notes on the General Theory of
Cliché (1979), Peter Grzybek and Wolfgang Eismann (eds.), Semiotische Studien zum Sprichwort. Simple Forms Reconsidered I (1984), and Zoltán Kanyó,
Sprichwörter—Analyse einer Einfachen Form: Ein Beitrag zur generativen Poetik (1981). Peter Grzybek has summarized this linguistic approach to
proverbs in his seminal article on “Foundations of Semiotic Proverb Study”
(1987, see also Grzybek 2000). As scholars investigate the hetereo-situativity,
poly-functionality, and poly-semanticity of proverbs as “einfache Formen”
(simple forms), it is of great significance that they pay attention to the paradigmatic, syntagmatic, logical, structural, pragmatic, and semantic aspects of
these traditional utterances as communicative and strategic signs. Structural
analyses of texts will certainly gain in value if semiotic aspects of proverbs as
linguistic and cultural signs are added to them with a special focus on actual
proverb performance in speech acts (Goodwin and Wenzel 1979).
This is not to say that the purely linguistic approach to proverbs lacks in
value, as David Cram has clearly shown in his article on “The Linguistic Status of the Proverb” (1983). Cram and other linguists argue that the proverb
should be viewed as a lexical element with a quotational status. The proverb is
a lexical element in the sense that it is a syntactic string of words that is learned
and reused as a single unit with a fixed internal and external structure. Its quotational status derives from the fact that proverbs are typically invoked or cited
rather than straightforwardly asserted. In fact, proverbs often are quoted with
such introductory formulas as “my grandfather used to say,” “it is true that,”
“everybody knows that,” and even more directly “the proverb says.”
Structural proverb studies continue to be of interest, with Beatrice Silverman-Weinreich’s essay “Towards a Structural Analysis of Yiddish Proverbs”
(1978) being of special interest. The author concentrates on grammatical patterns in those proverbs that are based on conditional, comparative, imperative, and interrogative sentences. In addition she discusses such markers as
parallelism, ellipsis, assonance, alliteration, rhyme, and meter. Robert A.
Rothstein’s paper on “The Poetics of Proverbs” (1969) based his linguistic
analysis on proverbs from many languages, stressing ellipsis, parallelism,
rhyme, and other poetic devices. Of much importance is also Robert M. Harnish’s analysis of “Communicating with Proverbs” (1993) that emphasizes the
form (sential, phrasal, declarative, imperative) and the force (explanatory, attitudinal, directive) of English and Hungarian proverbs in speech acts.
In any case, linguists of various schools have investigated the language,
grammar, structure, syntax, and form of proverbs, and they have created an
entire new field of inquiry called “phraseology” that deals with all formulaic
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language or phraseological units (phraseologisms), from proverbs to literary
quotations, from proverbial expressions to idioms, from greeting formulas to
phrasal superstitions, and so on (see the numerous books on phraseology in
the bibliography). It behooves narrowly focused paremiologists to pay attention to such publications as Aleksandr K. Zholkovskii’s “At the Intersection of
Linguistics, Paremiology and Poetics” (1978) and Dmitrij Dobrovol’skij’s
Phraseologie als Objekt der Universalienlinguistik (1988). The relationship between paremiology and phraseology is indeed a very close one, especially
when dealt with from linguistic and semiotic viewpoints (Fleischer 1997).
PERFORMANCE (SPEECH ACTS) IN SOCIAL CONTEXTS
The vexing problem of proverb meaning continues to occupy semantic
studies. Linguists and folklorists have repeatedly attempted to explain the semantic ambiguity of proverbs, which results to a large degree from their being
used in various contexts with different functions (Jason 1971). But proverbs
also act as analogies, which adds to the complexity of understanding their
precise meaning in a particular speech act. Some semantic and semiotic studies along this line are Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett’s “Toward a Theory of
Proverb Meaning” (1973), Richard P. Honeck’s and Clare T. Kibler’s “The
Role of Imagery, Analogy, and Instantiation in Proverb Comprehension”
(1984), and Michael D. Lieber’s “Analogic Ambiguity: A Paradox of Proverb
Usage” (1984). In fact, linguist Neal R. Norrick dedicated his entire book on
How Proverbs Mean: Semantic Studies in English Proverbs (1985) to this problem. He deals, of course, primarily with both the literal but usually figurative
meaning of proverbs, emphasizing the ambiguity of metaphorical proverbs.
In trying to understand the meaning of proverbs in certain contexts, one
must keep in mind that they are usually employed to disambiguate complex
situations and events. Yet they are paradoxically inherently ambiguous, because their meaning depends on analogy. Proverbs as devices of disambiguation, the paradox of analogic ambiguity in proverb usage, and the sociocultural use of proverbs in oral and written communication still require further study by paremiologists as they map out the strategies used in the
appropriate employment of seemingly simple and yet so complex proverbial
utterances.
Clearly the meaning and purpose of proverbs are best revealed by actual
usage in social situations. Their strategic use in communication has been effectively analyzed by Kenneth Burke in his enlightening essay on “Literature
[i.e., proverbs] as Equipment for Living” (1941) and in Peter Seitel’s article
on “Proverbs: A Social Use of Metaphor” (1969). When one considers
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proverbs in context, it should not be surprising that there are such contradictory proverb pairs as “Birds of a feather flock together” and “Opposites attract.” After all, proverbs are not universal truths but rather limited pieces of
folk wisdom that are valid only in certain situations. As Kwesi Yankah explains in his article “Do Proverbs Contradict?” (1984), the problem of contradictory proverbs exists primarily because people ignore their social context.
If one deals with proverbs only as a concept of a cultural fact or truism, contradictions are easily found in any proverb repertoire. In contextual usage,
however, proverbs function effectively as social strategies. In fact, the meaning of any proverb is actually evident only after it has been contextualized.
Proverbs in normal discourse are not contradictory at all, and they usually
make perfect sense to the speaker and listener. After all, people don’t speak in
proverb pairs, unless they are “dueling” with proverbs as a verbal contest, as
Yankah shows in his invaluable study on The Proverb in the Context of Akan
Rhetoric: A Theory of Proverb Praxis (1989).
Today it has almost become a cliché to point out that proverbs must be studied in context, but it took a long time for anthropologically oriented proverb
collectors to go beyond mere texts and look at the use and function of the
proverbial materials in actual speech acts. The noted anthropologist Edward
Westermarck (1862–1939) began to look at proverbs from this contextual
point of view in his Wit and Wisdom in Morocco. A Study of Native Proverbs
(1930), and Cyril L. Nyembezi followed suit with his Zulu Proverbs (1963).
Modern scholars trained in the theoretical aspects of speech acts or performance
look at proverbs as part of active verbal communication. E. Ojo Arewa and
Alan Dundes laid the groundwork for this type of analysis with their study on
“[Yoruba] Proverbs and the Ethnography of Speaking Folklore” (1964), in
which they looked at such questions as “What rules govern the use of proverbs?
Who is using them and to whom? On what occasions? In what places?” (see also
Penfield 1983; Fabian 1990). The study by anthropologist Charles L. Briggs on
“The Pragmatics of Proverb Performances in New Mexican Spanish” (1985) is
exemplary in this respect. Briggs studied the oral proverb performance in Córdova, a community of about 700 inhabitants located in the mountains of
northern New Mexico in the United States. From transcriptions of recorded
performances, Briggs isolates eight features of proverb use: tying phrase (i.e., introductory formula), identity of owner, quotation-framing verb, proverb text,
special association, general meaning or hypothetical situation, relevance of context, and validation of the performance. Most speakers have never thought of all
of this when expressing a proverb during an actual speech act, but these linguistic strategies definitely exist as proverbs are cited as signs of commonly understood and accepted folk wisdom.
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ISSUES OF CULTURE, FOLKLORE, AND HISTORY
Folklorists, cultural historians, and philologists have occupied themselves
for a long time with tracing the origin, history, dissemination, and meaning
of individual proverbs and their variants. One could go so far as to say that
there is a “story” behind every proverb, and it is usually a sizable task to deal
with just one text in this diachronic and semantic fashion. About some
proverbs entire books have been written, but there are also numerous lengthy
articles and small notes on specific expressions, to wit the listing in my International Bibliography of Explanatory Essays on Individual Proverbs and Proverbial Expressions (1977). The German folklorist and paremiologist Lutz
Röhrich has put together a three-volume Das große Lexikon der sprichwörtlichen Redensarten (1991–1992), in which he discusses the history and
meaning of hundreds of German texts. There are also a number of helpful
dictionaries that include explanatory comments on English proverbs and
proverbial expressions (see Ammer 1992, 1997; Brewer 1870 [1970]; Flavell
1993; Funk 1948, 1950, 1955, 1958, 1993; Rees 1984, 1987, 1990, 1995,
1996; Titelman 1996). While there exist exemplary studies on such proverbs
as “When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?” (Friedman 1974), “Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater” (Mieder 1993:
193–224), and “It is an ill bird that fouls its own nest” (Kunstmann 1939),
much remains to be done for obscure regional and dialectical texts (see Hain
1951) as well as for globally disseminated proverbs.
But folklorists and cultural historians do not concern themselves only with
the history and meaning of individual proverbs. They are also very much interested in looking at how proverbs were used in different historical periods.
Proverbs do, at least to a degree, reflect the attitudes or worldview (mentality)
of various social classes at different periods. This has been shown by Donald
McKelvie in his article on “Proverbial Elements in the Oral Tradition of an
English Urban Industrial Region” (1965), by Natalie Z. Davis in her book
chapter “Proverbial Wisdom and Popular Error” (1975) in French society and
culture, and by J.O.J. Nwachukwu-Agbada in his paper on the “Origin,
Meaning and Value of Igbo Historical Proverbs” (1990). The latter is a significant article on the origin and importance of Igbo historical proverbs to an
understanding of the cultural history of Nigeria. Although the texts might
not be precise history, they contain important information concerning the
folk interpretation of colonialism, wars, and other events. The fact that these
matters were crystallized into proverbial form brought about the remembrance and memorability of such historical facts in a primarily oral culture.
Of major interest is also James Obelkevich’s essay on “Proverbs and Social
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Proverbs
History” (1987), in which he discusses the users and uses of proverbs in Europe during different historical periods. He deals with various meanings of
proverbs in their historical and social context, emphasizing their significance
as expressions of “mentalities” or worldview. The article is primarily a social
history of proverb usage in England and shows that historians ought to join
literary scholars, folklorists, and anthropologists in studying proverbs as socially relevant wisdom.
Another area of interest for folklorists and cultural historians are proverbs
that belong to a particular group or that can be grouped together under a
theme, showing, for example, the traditional wisdom about gender issues and
misogyny in particular over the centuries (Kerschen 1998; Rittersbacher
2002). At their best, studies of this type should be comparatively oriented,
that is, they should look at proverbs from different cultural and linguistic
groups (see Petrova 2003). Thus, when A.A. Parker investigated The Humour
of Spanish Proverbs (1963) in a small pamphlet, it would have been of interest
to know whether the proverbs of other countries have similar texts. Of much
interest is also folklorist Sw. Anand Prahlad’s study on “‘No Guts, No Glory’:
Proverbs, Values and Image among Anglo-American University Students”
(1994), since he based it on actual field research among young informants
and their proverbs. A group can of course also be just a family, and folklorists
have been eager to find out how proverbs function in these small social units.
Three revealing accounts of familial proverb use based once again on field research and informants are given by Isaac Jack Lévy and Rosemary Lévy
Zumwalt in “A Conversation in Proverbs: Judeo-Spanish Refranes in Context”
(1990), Dan Ben-Amos in “Meditation on a Russian Proverb [‘Don’t say hop
before you have jumped and landed’] in Israel” (1995), and Derek A.
Williams, “‘Everything that Shine Ain’t Gold’: A Preliminary Ethnography of
a Proverb in an African American Family” (2003). But the group studied can,
of course, also be as complex as the multi-ethnic society of Israel. Galit HasanRokem has dealt with the use and function of proverbs in Israeli discourse in
her enlightening paper on “Proverbs as Inter-Ethnic Dialogue in Israel”
(1992), showing that proverbs can take on an important role in conflict solutions. Finally, one might ask what the proverb repertoire of one particular
person might be. In order to answer this question, Stanley Brandes interviewed an elderly Spanish widow and presented his findings in an intriguing
article on “The Selection Process in Proverb Use: A Spanish Example”
(1974). Brandes compares her proverbs with the total inventory of proverbs
collected in her village, he examines how the proverb content may reflect or
relate to her direct experience, he evaluates whether her proverbs express consistent or contradictory notions, and he determines the functions and goals of
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her proverb use. Above all, Brandes shows that there is always a selection process going on whereby each person seizes upon or rejects the proverbs he or
she has heard, depending upon his or her momentary outlook, status, or
lifestyle. All of this is yet another indication that proverbs are no simple matter. Being acquainted with a number of proverbs is one thing, knowing when
and how to use what proverb is quite another. Any person speaking a foreign
language is well aware of this communicative difficulty with proverbs.
As can be seen, folklorists, and many paremiologists are folklorists, occupy
themselves with all aspects of proverbs discussed in this section of the book.
This continues to include the vexing problem of the definition of proverbs and
the creation of new texts, to wit Stephen D. Winick’s superb article on “Intertextuality and Innovation in a Definition of the Proverb Genre” (2003). More
than other scholars, folklorists and cultural historians are also interested in the
content of proverbs, to wit what cultural realia are contained in individual
proverbs and how they differ from culture to culture in proverbs that might
mean the same. Many proverbs refer to old measurements, obscure professions, outdated weapons, unknown tools, plants, animals, names, and various
other traditional matters. Often it is not clear any longer what exactly is meant
by certain words in a proverb, even though its actual sense is understood. That
is why people so often ask what a proverb really means, where it comes from,
and so on. Folklorists and cultural historians together with historically minded
linguists are the ones who provide answers to these fascinating questions.
POLITICS, STEREOTYPES, AND WORLDVIEW
Care must be taken when looking at proverbs as expressing aspects of a certain worldview or mentality of a people that no stereotypical conclusions
about a so-called national character are drawn. There are so many popular
proverbs from classical, biblical, and medieval times current in various cultures that it would be foolish to think of them as reflecting some imagined national character, as for example Chinese or Finnish (Lister 1874–1875; Kuusi
1967). Nevertheless, the frequent use of certain proverbs in a particular culture could be used together with other social and cultural indicators to formulate valid generalizations. Thus, if the Germans really do use the proverbs
“Morgenstunde hat Gold im Munde” (The morning hour has gold in its
mouth, i.e., The early bird catches the worm) and “Ordnung ist das halbe
Leben” (Order is half of life) with high frequency, then they do mirror at least
to some degree the German attitude towards getting up early and keeping
things in good order (see Dundes 1984). In any case, proverb studies looking
for national character traits should be undertaken with much care.
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Proverbs can be quite negative when they express, as many of them do,
slurs or stereotypes, as Lynne Ronesi has illustrated on a global scope in her
important paper on “‘Mightier than the Sword’: A Look at Proverbial Prejudice” (2000). Such negative proverbial texts appear in the earliest proverb collections, and they are still used today despite attempts to be open-minded
towards ethnic, religious, sexual, national, and regional differences. Two special collections are Otto von Reinsberg-Düringsfeld’s Internationale Titulaturen (1863) and Abraham A. Roback’s A Dictionary of International Slurs
(1944). Folklorist Alan Dundes presents an excellent study of national slurs,
or “blasons populaires,” in his “Slurs International: Folk Comparisons of Ethnicity and National Character” (1975), dealing with such topics as stereotypes, national character, ethnocentrism, and prejudice. Shirley L. Arora
contributed a revealing article on “Proverbs and Prejudice: El Indio in Hispanic Proverbial Speech” (1994), outlining the proverbial stereotypes that the
Spanish colonizers invented against the native populations of Central and
South America. I have described the use of anti-Semitic proverbs by the National Socialists in their murderous campaign of the destruction of the European Jews in my chilling article on “Proverbs in Nazi Germany: The
Promulgation of Anti-Semitism and Stereotypes through Folklore” (1982),
and J.O.J. Nwachukwu-Agbada has studied the historical and social background of proverbs against the white colonizers in “‘Bèkeè’ [the white man]
in Igbo Proverbial Lore” (1988). The sad story of just one such hateful
proverb I have shown in my analysis of “‘No Tickee, No Washee’” (1996) and
also in my book-length study “Call a Spade a Spade”: From Classical Phrase to
Racial Slur (2002). These proverbial stereotypes against the Chinese Americans and African Americans, respectively, have done much harm in the American society, and they should not be used any longer. Many additional studies
need to be undertaken to show the danger and harm that such proverbial invectives can inflict on innocent people.
Finally, folklorists, historians, and political scientists have also looked at
the use of proverbs in politics as most effective rhetorical devices (Louis
2000). Shirley L. Arora published an intriguing study of the role that the
Greek proverb “The fish rots from the head first” with its major variant “The
fish begins to stink at the head” played during the American presidential campaign in the summer of 1988 in the mass media (Arora 1989). In my book on
The Politics of Proverbs (1997) I was able to illustrate that politicians from
classical to modern times have deployed proverbs effectively in their rhetoric.
Adolf Hitler, for example, used proverbs in his propagandistic and prophetic
book Mein Kampf (My Battle, 1925–1926) to advocate the military and
deadly goals of Nazism (see also Doerr 2000). Winston S. Churchill em-
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ployed proverbs in his speeches and letters to convince the British people and
the rest of the world that Nazi Germany had to be overcome by all means
(Mieder and Bryan 1995). And, as expected, the plain-speaking Harry S. Truman added many proverbs and proverbial expressions to his verbal messages
in order to communicate in a language that the average folk could understand
(Mieder and Bryan 1997).
But speaking of presidents, John Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and also John F. Kennedy were all quite proverbial in their communications with the American people. Basically all
presidents try to express their political messages in a language that is accessible
to all the American people, no matter what their ethnic, social, or intellectual
background might be. Proverbs are so to speak the “common denominator” of
wisdom of a nation, and little wonder that even inaugural addresses are replete
with proverbs. They add colorful metaphors to speeches that are often filled
with setting political agendas, thus giving them a “folksy” touch with which
people can identify (Mieder 2000). But proverbs in political use are not without their problems. While they can do much good in creating solid communication based on generational wisdom, they can also be misused to
manipulate people into following the wrong leaders. Nazi Germany is a warning of how proverbs, especially anti-Semitic proverbs, became dangerous verbal weapons. People followed such proverbial invectives blindly, forgetting
that proverbs are not absolute truths. As Joseph Raymond signaled in his article on “Tensions in Proverbs: More Light on International Understanding”
(1956), proverbs can cut both ways in the political realm—as stereotypical invectives they can lead to tensions, but as metaphors of indirection they can in
fact relax tensions. My later study on “‘Raising the Iron Curtain’: Proverbs and
Political Cartoons of the Cold War” (Mieder 1997: 99–137 and 214–221
[notes]) showed clearly that world leaders like Leonid Brezhnev, Mikhail Gorbachev, Margaret Thatcher, Helmut Kohl, François Mitterand, and Ronald
Reagan as well as international journalists employed such proverbs as “Hear no
evil, see no evil, speak no evil,” “Big fish eat little fish,” “The pen is mightier
than the sword,” and “It takes two to tango” to deal with serious political issues. As the world continues its struggle towards peace and democracy, people
might well keep in mind the American proverb of democracy: “Government
of the people, by the people, for the people” (Mieder 2003).
SOCIOLOGY, PSYCHOLOGY, AND PSYCHIATRY
The social sciences have contributed a wealth of scholarship about the
multifaceted characteristics, uses, functions, and meanings of proverbs. Janet
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Sobieski and I have put together a 1,169-item review of these publications in
our book Proverbs and the Social Sciences: An Annotated Bibliography (2003).
The large subject index shows that some of the major areas of inquiry are abstraction, attitude, behavior, cognition, communication, community, ethnicity, experience, gender, intelligence, memory, mental health, perception,
schizophrenia, socialization, transmission, validity, wisdom, and so on. The
work of anthropologists like Charles Briggs and Edward Westermarck has already been mentioned in other sections on culture, folklore, performance,
and social contexts, but Ruth Finnegan’s chapter on “Proverbs” in her celebrated book on Oral Literature in Africa (1970) must be added here. It represents a detailed anthropological survey of the concept of proverbs in
African societies, especially among the Jabo, Zulu, and Azande peoples.
While Finnegan deals in general with the language, style, content, use, and
function of the proverbs as part of social life, there is also Samuel Gyasi
Obeng’s much more specific study on “The Proverb as a Mitigating and Politeness Strategy in Akan Discourse” (1996). This paper is a superb example
of how anthropologists study proverbs as performance in social contexts. In
this case it is the indirection of the proverbial message that brings about a
congenial communicative process that otherwise might have been confrontational. But it should be stressed that proverbs are used as mitigating
strategies in modern discourse as well, once again owing their effectiveness
to the indirect and less threatening way of expressing something that must
be said.
While social anthropologists have dealt with proverbs since the nineteenth
century, basing their research on impressive field research, sociologists regrettably have had much less interest in proverbs. And yet, as they study the social organizations and the behavior of people in them, it would make eminent
sense to take a look at how proverbs relate and participate in social structures
and life. But there is exciting new scholarship available, as for example Paul
Hernadi’s and Francis Steen’s “The Tropical Landscapes of Proverbia: A
Crossdisciplinary Travelogue” (1999) with its look at proverbs as socially
sanctioned advice. Marilyn A. Nippold, Linda D. Uhden, and Ilsa E. Schwarz
looked at the ability of understanding and interpreting proverbs at different
age stages in “Proverb Explanation Through the Lifespan: A Developmental
Study of Adolescents and Adults” (1997), and Alyce McKenzie published a
fascinating study on “‘Different Strokes for Different Folks’: America’s Quintessential Postmodern Proverb” (1996), explaining that while this modern
proverb does advocate the freedom of choice (especially in behavioral matters), it must not be interpreted from a relativistic point of view lacking any
moral and social obligations. The liberating thoughts of the proverb regard-
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ing individual choices obviously should go only so far as they conform with
ethical concepts of society at large.
Proverbs have also been studied and used by social psychologists to help
people deal with various behavioral problems including alcohol or drug addictions. Tim B. Rogers has shown in his article on “The Use of Slogans, Colloquialisms, and Proverbs in the Treatment of Substance Addiction: A
Psychological Application of Proverbs” (1989) that proverbs like “No pain,
no gain” can be used on posters in treatment centers as a constant reminder
that it is a worthwhile struggle to overcome an addiction in order to live a
normal life. Such proverbs have also been used during discussions in group
therapeutic sessions where they help to create a common ground for the addicts. There is also a follow-up paper by Bryan B. Whaley with the proverbial
title “When ‘Try, Try Again’ Turns to ‘You’re Beating a Dead Horse’: The
Rhetorical Characteristics of Proverbs and Their Potential for Influencing
Therapeutic Change” (1993), indicating that the therapeutic use of proverbs
is not without its problems and that they should not be overused as simplistic remedies of folk speech.
Psychologists and psychiatrists have long been interested in proverbs for
testing intelligence, attitudes, aptitudes, and various mental illnesses. Numerous so-called “proverbs tests” have been devised for this purpose, the best
known and most commonly used of which is the Gorham Proverbs Test. It
was developed by Donald R. Gorham in 1956 as a tool for diagnosing schizophrenia, since schizophrenics have difficulty in understanding the
metaphors of proverbs by interpreting them literally (Gorham 1956). Obviously psycho- and sociolinguistic aspects of normal comprehension of
metaphors by, for instance, children versus adults, native versus foreign
speakers, or white-collar versus blue-collar workers, enter into this. Of greatest importance is, however, that proverbs tests usually exclude any contextualization of the proverbs, even though it has long been established that
proverbs can only be understood properly in social contexts (Mieder 1978;
Rogers 1986).
But it is in the area of psycholinguistics that the true cutting-edge work is
going on in theoretical paremiology. Psycholinguists have employed proverbs
to study the mental development of children and the whole question of cognition and comprehension of metaphors (see Lakoff and Johnson 1980; Cacciari and Tabossi 1993; Everaert et al. 1995; Katz et al. 1998; Glucksberg
2001). Diana Van Lancker’s seminal article on “The Neurology of Proverbs”
(1990) looks at the complex mental processes that must take place in the
brain of healthy people to understand abstract (i.e., metaphorical) proverbs,
and Raymond W. Gibbs and his colleague Dinara Beitel have looked in great
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detail at “What Proverb Understanding Reveals about How People Think”
(1995), discussing various theories of metaphor understanding based on
proverbs. The psycholinguist Richard P. Honeck has dedicated his entire
scholarly career to finding solutions to the vexing problems of cognition and
figurative (metaphorical) language. In his superb book on A Proverb in Mind:
The Cognitive Science of Proverbial Wit and Wisdom (1997) he reviews all relevant previous scholarship on metaphor comprehension and then examines
proverbs in particular, looking at such matters as cognition, comprehension,
communication, indirection, memory, and metaphor. As Honeck and his
psycholinguistic colleagues have shown, proverbs might appear to be simple
truths, but they certainly demand complex brain transactions to be properly
understood and effectively used.
USE IN FOLK NARRATIVES AND LITERATURE
The interrelationship of proverbs with other verbal folklore genres has
been of great interest to paremiologists for a long time. Classical Greek and
Latin writers commented on the obvious interrelationship between fables and
proverbs, theorizing, as it were, about which of the genres came first. In other
words, does the proverb that adds a bit of moralizing or ethical wisdom at the
end of a fable summarize its content, or is the fable nothing but an explanatory comment on the original proverb? This scholarship has been splendidly
edited by Pack Carnes in his volume entitled Proverbia in Fabula: Essays on the
Relationship of the Fable and the Proverb (1988). The use and function of
proverbs in German fairy tales has been studied by Lothar Bluhm and Heinz
Rölleke in their book on Das Sprichwort in den “Kinder- und Hausmärchen”
der Brüder Grimm (1988), and there is also my essay on “Wilhelm Grimm’s
Proverbial Additions in the Fairy Tales” (1986), showing that the Brothers
Grimm changed the style of the fairy tales they had collected from oral
sources to make them sound even more “folksy” and ready-made for children.
Galit Hasan-Rokem’s valuable study on Proverbs in Israeli Folk Narratives: A
Structural Semantic Analysis (1982) is also of much interest. The connections
between proverbs and riddles, proverbs and jokes, and wellerisms and tall
tales have also been studied in smaller articles and notes, and both Bartlett
Jere Whiting and Richard Sweterlitsch have looked at the significance of
proverbs in the narrative texts of ballads (Whiting 1934; Sweterlitsch 1985;
see also Harris 1933). Much work remains to be done in this area, especially
regarding etiological tales that serve the purpose of explaining the origin and
meaning of proverbs and proverbial expressions (Hood 1885; Taylor
1971–1973; Röhrich 1991–1992).
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Much has also been accomplished regarding the use and function of
proverbs in literature, as can be seen from the 2,654 entries in George B.
Bryan’s and my Proverbs in World Literature: A Bibliography (1996). Early
scholarship consists primarily of annotated lists of the proverbs found in literary works, while more recent publications address the problems of identification and interpretation of proverbial language in poetry, dramas, and prose.
As Roger D. Abrahams and Barbara A. Babcock have noted in their essay on
“The Literary Use of Proverbs” (1977), there are hundreds of literary proverb
studies centering primarily on European and American authors ranging from
the Middle Ages through the nineteenth century, but there are now also investigations of the proverbs in modern writers of Africa, Asia, and elsewhere
(see Adéèkó 1998). While the many monographs on famous writers as J. Alan
Pfeffer’s The Proverb in Goethe (1948), María Cecilia Colombi’s Los refranes
en el Quijote: Texto y contexto (1989), Daniel Calvez’s Le langage proverbial de
Voltaire dans sa correspondance (1704–1769) (1989), Marjorie Donker’s
Shakespeare’s Proverbial Themes: A Rhetorical Context for the “Sententia” as
“Res” (1992), George B. Bryan’s Black Sheep, Red Herrings, and Blue Murder:
The Proverbial Agatha Christie (1993), Susan E. Deskis’s “Beowulf ” and the
Medieval Proverb Tradition (1996), and my “No Struggle, No Progress”: Frederick Douglass and His Proverbial Rhetoric for Civil Rights (2001) are of importance, there are also more inclusive literary proverb studies of a national
literature or a certain historical period, as for example Elisabeth SchulzeBusacker’s Proverbes et expressions proverbiales dans la littérature narrative du
moyen âge français (1985), Adélékè Adéèkó’s Proverbs, Textuality, and Nativism in African Literature (1998), and Kevin McKenna’s edited volume
Proverbs in Russian Literature: From Catherine the Great to Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1998). Rather than writing yet another study on Chinua Achebe or
William Shakespeare, more such inclusive investigations are in order to draw
valid conclusions regarding the use and function of proverbs during the different literary periods of various cultures and languages. The many specific
analyses of literary works ought to add up to a better understanding of the poetics of proverbs in literature, also indicating, of course, what proverbs were
in frequent use at what time.
All of this scholarship shows that there exists an impressive tradition of
folklorists and literary historians looking at and interpreting the proverbial
language in literary texts. Although authors differ in the frequency with
which they employ proverbs, proverbial expressions, proverbial comparisons,
and wellerisms, their works become important repositories of proverbial language. Whatever the number of proverbial texts in a literary work might be,
locating them and interpreting their meaning can be a significant twofold
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task. Identification serves primarily paremiographical goals in that it deals
with the texts. Since the oral use of proverbs in former centuries can no longer
be investigated through field research, scholars depend on the written word as
sources of them. Every literary investigation of proverbs should, ideally, include an index of all proverbial material with proper verification of their
proverbiality (as far as this is possible) by means of standard proverb dictionaries. Such annotated proverb lists are of great importance for the preparation
of both expanded and new historical proverb dictionaries.
However, this is only the paremiographical side of the coin. In addition to
the identification of proverbial texts there should also be a detailed interpretation of their contextual function. Literary critics, folklorists, and paremiologists want to know when, why, how, by whom, and to whom proverbs are
used in literary works. They will thus consider each example in its context to
determine what effect it has on the style and message of the entire work. Of
much interest is also whether introductory formulas are used to integrate the
proverb into the text, whether the formulaic standard structure of the proverb
has been changed for stylistic effect, whether a proverb is merely alluded to in
an ironic twist, whether a proverb is intentionally parodied or questioned,
and so on. The answers to such queries reveal the function and meaning of
proverbial wisdom in literary works. In summary then, the ideal literary
proverb investigation consists of a proverb index and an interpretive essay.
RELIGION AND WISDOM LITERATURE
Proverbs derived from the sacred writings of the world’s religions have also
gained wide circulation and have been studied as international expressions of
wisdom. Selwyn Gurney Champion has put together a comparative proverb
collection entitled The Eleven Religions and Their Proverbial Lore (1945), followed by Albert Kirby Griffin’s Religious Proverbs: Over 1600 Adages from 18
Faiths Worldwide (1991), and there is also my small book Not by Bread Alone:
Proverbs of the Bible (1990) with its 425 biblical proverbs current in the
Anglo-American language. A vast international scholarship centers on wisdom literature that has found its way into traditional proverbs (see O’Connor
1993). Of particular importance are the studies by Clifford Henry Plopper,
Chinese Religion Seen through the Proverb (1926); John Mark Thompson, The
Form and Function of Proverbs in Ancient Israel (1974); Carole R. Fontaine,
Traditional Sayings in the Old Testament: A Contextual Study (1982); Alan P.
Winton, The Proverbs of Jesus: Issues of History and Rhetoric (1990); Theodore
A. Perry, Wisdom Literature and the Structure of Proverbs (1993); and Claus
Westermann, Roots of Wisdom: The Oldest Proverbs of Israel and Other Peoples
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(1995). But much more comparative work is needed to point out the similarities and dissimilarities of the proverbial wisdom of the various religions.
There is also not enough known yet about the influence that biblical proverbs
had on the African or Asian population because of the missionary work. An
exemplary and massive study (767 pp.) along these lines is Philippe Dinzolele
Nzambi, Proverbes bibliques et proverbes kongo: Étude comparative de “Proverbia 25–29” et de quelques proverbes kongo (1992). But such indigenous studies as Gerald J. Wanjohi’s The Wisdom and the Philosophy of the Gikuyu
Proverbs (1997) are also of great value in understanding the religious and ethical value systems of various peoples.
There have been many attempts to discover links between wisdom and science. Some of this fascinating scholarship has been collected into an essay volume by Warren S. Brown with the title Understanding Wisdom: Sources,
Science, and Society (2000). Evidence of verbal wisdom, much of it in the
form of proverbs, can be seen both in the perception and performance of it,
in religious writings, and certainly in everyday communication on all levels.
Scholars from such diverse fields as theology, philosophy, medicine, psychology, and linguistics continue to look at the sources of wisdom (ancient wisdom literature, cultural traditions, moral values), the science of wisdom
(cognition, comprehension, psycholinguistics), and the learning of wisdom
(pedagogy, memorization, communication). John Marks Templeton published an uplifting book on Worldwide Laws of Life: Two Hundred Eternal
Spiritual Principles (1997) based on wisdom drawn from major sacred scriptures of the world and different philosophies. The book is intended to help
people to acquaint themselves with and hopefully to practice universally accepted moral truths, often expressed in the form of proverbs, as for example
“Love thy neighbor as yourself ” (Matt. 19:19), “Hitch your wagon to a star”
(Ralph Waldo Emerson), “Honesty is the best policy,” “A healthy mind in a
healthy body,” and, of course, the so-called golden rule of “Do unto others, as
you would have them do unto you” (Matt. 7:12). There is also the ever expanding area of “self-help” books that draw on the wisdom of religious and
folk proverbs to assist people in coping with the many challenges of modern
life. Such books are meant to be therapeutic both from a sociological and psychological point of view, being based to a considerable extent on such
proverbs as “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again,” “No pain, no gain,”
and “Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today.” These matters
have been studied by Jeffrey D. Arthurs in his article on “Proverbs in Inspirational Literature: Sanctioning the American Dream” (1994). Dylan Eret followed up with his essay on “‘The Past Does Not Equal the Future’: Anthony
Robbins’ Self-Help Maxims as Therapeutic Forms of Proverbial Rhetoric”
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(2001), showing clearly that some of the “gurus” of the self-help phenomenon also create their very own maxims in the style of proverbs to spread their
message among their eager readers.
Finally, but certainly not of less importance, there is the long tradition of
the sermonic use of proverbs. Preachers in all religions frequently base their
sermons on religious as well as folk proverbs to teach moral values for an upright life. From the folk preachers of the Middle Ages via Martin Luther (see
Cornette 1942 [1997]) to the nineteenth-century American preacher Henry
Ward Beecher and on to such internationally acclaimed preachers like Martin
Luther King, proverbs have played a central role in their religious and social
messages. At times the proverbs were simply used in an exegetic way to clarify certain Bible passages, but a much more important function of proverbs in
sermons is to employ them as a sapient leitmotif. Alyce M. McKenzie has
summarized this significant use of proverbial wisdom in her book on Preaching Proverbs: Wisdom for the Pulpit (1996).
PEDAGOGY AND LANGUAGE TEACHING
Proverbs have been used as teaching tools for centuries to teach moral values and social skills. In fact, there exist special proverbs that deal with such
matters as the mind, wisdom, experience, learning, authority, and the teacher,
as Dumitru Stanciu has shown in his article on “The Proverb and the Problems of Education” (1986). Proverbs contain much educational wisdom, and
they have long been used as didactic tools in child rearing, in linguistic and
religious instruction in schools, and in teaching about general human experiences. Such proverbs continue to play a major role as a pedagogical tool in
modern societies, especially among family members and at school. They deserve to be taught as part of general education, and since they belong to the
common knowledge of basically all native speakers, they are indeed very effective devices to communicate wisdom and knowledge about human nature
and the world at large. Felix Boateng reaches similar conclusions in his significant paper on “African Traditional Education: A Tool for Intergenerational Communication” (1985), calling for a return to traditional education
in Africa with an emphasis on the rich heritage of oral literature as expressed
in fables, myths, legends, folk tales, and proverbs. Clearly the educational and
communicative power of proverbs in African societies lies in their use as validators of traditional ethics, procedures, and beliefs in teaching children as
well as adults. Further studies will certainly show that the value and power of
proverbs as educational tools have not diminished in traditional or technological societies.
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Proverbs have also been employed in native language instruction and to
bring cultural traditions to foreign-language classes. Textbooks on both the
teaching of native and foreign languages usually include at least some lists of
proverbs and accompanying exercises. For English this began in the Middle
Ages when Latin proverbs were used for translation exercises and to teach
children moral precepts. This pedagogical and didactic use of proverbs continued well into the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as Martin Orkin explains in his article on “The Poor Cat’s Adage and Other Shakespearian
Proverbs in Elizabethan Grammar-School Education” (1978). But this tradition has by no means come to an end, as Deborah Holmes and I explain in
our book on “Children and Proverbs Speak the Truth”: Teaching Proverbial Wisdom to Fourth Graders (2000). The study shows that the developmental stage
of fourth graders might be the perfect time to confront students with the
character-building values of proverbial laws of life. The fact that they learned
proverbs, that they can employ them in meaningful contexts, and that they
act according to their wisdom is proof that children age 9 to 10 can cope with
abstract and metaphorical proverbs as rules of moral conduct.
But proverbs also play a major role in the teaching of English as a second
language, where they are included as part of metaphorical and cultural learning. Obviously it behooves new speakers of English to be acquainted with
proverbs and other phraseological units for effective communication. As instructors plan the curriculum and devise textbooks for teaching English as a
second language, they should choose those proverbs for inclusion that are
part of the Anglo-American paremiological minimum. It is the proverbs that
are in use today that ought to be taught, as Michael C. Abadi has argued in
his survey of “Proverbs as ESL [English as Second Language] Curriculum”
(2000). All of this also holds true for foreign language instruction in general,
where proverbs have always been included as fixed cultural expressions. There
is much scholarship on how to integrate proverbs into the teaching of foreign
languages, notably Kevin J. McKenna’s article on “‘Na poslovitsu ni suda ni
raspravy’: The Role of Proverbs in the Russian Language Curriculum” (1991),
Frank Nuessel’s survey of “Proverbs and Metaphoric Language in SecondLanguage Acquisition” (1999), and above all Anna Tóthné Litovkina’s book
A Proverb a Day Keeps Boredom Away (2000). While the latter volume is intended primarily for Hungarian students learning English, it could easily be
adapted for other language classes. The aim of the book is to familiarize language students with over 450 Anglo-American proverbs by providing a series
of activities and exercises that will help the learner to discover what each
proverb means and how to apply it in particular situations. The exercises
bring the proverbs alive with short illustrative references from books, maga-
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zines, and newspapers, as well as from poems, fables, and folk narratives. The
book also focuses on proverb humor, including anti-proverbs and wellerisms.
The fact that the author has also provided 60 proverb illustrations from such
well-known artists as Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter Bruegel the Elder as well
as woodcuts, engravings, emblems, caricatures, cartoons, and advertisements
makes it a most attractive and useful textbook for proverb acquisition in language classes.
ICONOGRAPHY: PROVERBS AS ART
There exists a long tradition of iconographic interpretations of proverbs,
ranging from medieval woodcuts to misericords, from book illustrations to
emblems, from tapestries to oil paintings, and from broadsheets to modern
caricatures, cartoons, comic strips, and advertisements. Much attention has
been paid to the Dutch painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1520–1569), who
produced many proverb pictures, his most celebrated one being the Netherlandish Proverbs (1559), an oil painting illustrating over 100 proverbial expressions as well as some proverbs like “Big fish eat little fish” or “Two dogs
over one bone seldom agree.” Numerous books and articles have been written
on this picture alone, three more recent publications being Alan Dundes and
Claudia A. Stibbe, The Art of Mixing Metaphors: A Folkloristic Interpretation
of the “Netherlandish Proverbs” by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1981); Margaret A.
Sullivan, “Bruegel’s Proverb Painting: Renaissance Art for a Humanist Audience” (1991); and Mark Meadow, Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s “Netherlandish
Proverbs” and the Practice of Rhetoric: Studies in Netherlandish Art and Cultural
History (2002).
As valuable as this preoccupation with Bruegel is, a detailed survey of the
history of proverb iconography shows that he is but one major figure in the
long tradition of proverbial art that in addition to paintings and drawings also
includes such other artistic media as ceramics, textiles, T-shirts, sculptures,
gold weights, coins, stamps, playing cards, and posters. The impressive scholarship concerning this fascinating area of paremiology has been put together
by Janet Sobieski and me in Proverb Iconography: An International Bibliography (1999). The 378 annotated entries are proof that since proverbial
metaphors are verbal images, artists have long delighted in translating these
images into various art forms.
Before Pieter Bruegel, another Dutch painter by the name of Hieronymus
Bosch had already included numerous proverbial scenes in his well-known oil
paintings The Hay Wain (1485) and The Garden of Earthly Delights (1500).
Pieter Brueghel the Younger made a number of copies of his father’s cele-
Scholarship and Approaches
149
Cited from Max J. Friedländer, Pieter Bruegel. Berlin: Propyläen Verlag, 1921,
plate 44.
brated proverb picture in the early seventeenth century, and there is also the
less ambitious oil painting Dutch Proverbs (1646/47) by David Teniers II.
Francisco Goya prepared 22 etchings entitled Los Proverbios (1824; also called
Los Disparates), and many other artists followed suit, including Albrecht
Dürer, Jacob Jordaens, and Paul Klee. There is even a proverb tapestry from
the fifteenth century in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, and
mention must also be made of 182 woodcuts with didactic eight-line stanzas
from the same time that have been edited with explanatory comments by
Grace Frank and Dorothy Miner as Proverbes en Rimes: Text and Illustrations
of the Fifteenth Century from a French Manuscript in the Walters Art Gallery,
Baltimore (1937). But while much is known about secular proverbial carvings
on wooden choir stalls (i.e., misericords) in late medieval churches (Jones
1989), very little work has been done on proverbs in plastic art otherwise.
There are, however, at least some studies on African gold weights, drums,
tribal spokesman staffs, and textiles that depict proverbial wisdom (Yankah
1989: 71–116).
Many proverb illustrations are satirical depictions of foolishness in an absurd or so-called world-upside-down (Kunzle 1977). The satirical intent is
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usually coupled with didactic messages, as can be seen in hundreds of illustrated books that include woodcuts, engravings, and emblems. For some
proverbs and proverbial expressions like “Pandora’s box,” “The pitcher goes to
the well so often until at last it breaks,” and “Hear no evil, see no evil, speak
no evil” and the figures of the three monkeys attached to it, art historians,
folklorists, and paremiologists have assembled various types of iconographic
representations that span several centuries (see Panofsky 1956; Zick 1969;
Mieder 1981). Other diachronic studies with numerous illustrations are
needed, and care should be taken to include modern depictions as well. After
all, these traditional and common proverbs continue to be illustrated in caricatures, cartoons, and comic strips. In addition, they appear on posters, billboards, postcards, greeting cards, buttons, banners, plaques, bookmarks,
bumper stickers, coffee mugs, decorative plates, and T-shirts as well as in numerous advertisements. The images might be modern, but the idea of transposing verbal proverbs into art is old, and one is inclined to state proverbially
that “There is nothing new under the sun.” (Eccles. 1:9).
MASS MEDIA AND POPULAR CULTURE
While it is perfectly appropriate for paremiologists to look backwards for
the use of proverbs, they must not forget to investigate their traditional and innovative use in modern times. With the growing interest in popular culture,
the mass media, and cultural literacy, paremiologists ought to look at which
traditional proverbs survive today and which have actually been coined in the
twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Nigel Rees offers useful information on
Sayings of the Century: The Stories Behind the Twentieth Century’s Quotable Sayings (1984), and I have dealt with the modern German scene in a number of
books (Mieder 1983, 1985, 1995a, 1995b) and with Anglo-American materials in my book on Proverbs Are Never Out of Season: Popular Wisdom in the
Modern Age (1993). People do not necessarily consider proverbs to be sacrosanct, and the “fun” of parodying, manipulating, and perverting them has become quite widespread. While such parodies might be humorous, they also
often express serious sociopolitical satire in the form of slogans and graffiti, as
Jess Nierenberg has convincingly shown in his article on “Proverbs in Graffiti:
Taunting Traditional Wisdom” (1983). There is, of course, also the wellestablished tradition of intentionally rephrased anti-proverbs in all types of
modern communication, from books of witticisms to T-shirt inscriptions and
on to advertising slogans (see Mieder 1989: 239–275; Valdaeva 2003). While
such play is not absolutely new, humorous or satirical proverb parodies certainly abound in modern literature, the mass media, and the popular culture
Scholarship and Approaches
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of television, film, and music. Richard Sweterlitsch looked at the American
comic writer “Josh Billings: His Anti-Proverbs and Comic Aphorisms” (2001),
Anna Tóthné Litovkina and I have assembled over 3,000 parodied proverbs in
Twisted Wisdom: Modern Anti-Proverbs (1999), and I have also issued a small
popular collection of Wisecracks! Fractured Proverbs (2003). As I list but a few
expressive anti-proverbs that include humor as well as social comments, the
traditional proverb text is cited first. It is, after all, the juxtaposition of the original proverb with the innovative variation that adds even more spice to this
play with proverbial language:
Absence makes the heart grow fonder.
Absence makes the heart go wander.
An apple a day keeps the doctor away.
A condom a day keeps the doctor away.
Too many cooks spoil the broth.
Too many legislators spoil reform.
Experience is the best teacher.
Expedience is the best teacher.
A miss is as good as a mile.
A Ms. is as good as a male.
Nobody is perfect.
No body is perfect.
Different strokes for different folks.
Different Volks for different folks.
The last anti-proverb was a popular advertising slogan for various Volkswagen
models in the 1970s (see Mieder 1989: 293–315). In fact, copywriters know
very well that advertising slogans built on proverbial structures bring with
them that familiar and authoritative ring that is so crucial to the actual message. My wife, Barbara Mieder, and I looked at this phenomenon in a paper
on “Tradition and Innovation: Proverbs in Advertising” (1977). There have
been many additional studies ever since, including Jean Michel Massing’s fascinating study “From Greek Proverb to Soap Advert: Washing the Ethiopian”
(1995). The author traces the proverbial expression “To wash an Ethiopian
(Blackamoor) white” based on the dual biblical proverb “Can the Ethiopian
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change his skin, or the leopard his spots?” (Jer. 13:23) from ancient times
through various European languages and literatures and shows that it has
been used in soap advertisements with racist overtones.
Much work has also been accomplished on the manipulative use of
proverbs in the mass media as well as their (mis)use in political discourse. In
their traditional or fittingly changed wording, proverbs are frequently used by
journalists as attention-getting headlines, as Kevin J. McKenna has indicated
in his article on “Proverbs and Perestroika: An Analysis of Pravda Headlines,
1988–1991” (1996). Of equal importance are his papers on “Politics and the
Russian Proverb: A Retrospective of Pravda Political Cartoons in the 1990s”
(2002) and “A Nation Adrift: The Russian ‘Ship of State’ in Pravda Political
Cartoons during the Decade of the 1990s” (2003). Most of my studies in
German or English on the modern use of proverbs in the mass media include
numerous caricatures and cartoons as well (see especially Mieder 1989:
277–292), and Lutz Röhrich’s Das große Lexikon der sprichwörtlichen Redensarten (1991–1992) contains over 1,000 illustrations, among them many with
sociopolitical messages. Stephen D. Winick’s unpublished dissertation features an intriguing chapter on “From Common Sense to Nonsense: Proverbial Language and Intertextuality in Gary Larson’s The Far Side” (Winick
1998: 217–283) that should serve as a model for similar studies of Peanuts,
Dennis the Menace, and other long-running comic strips and cartoons. There
is no doubt that proverbs and proverbial expressions are very much alive in
this visual type of communication. Usually the text of the proverb appears as
a caption, and the topics range from political to sexual matters. Comic strips
are also filled with proverbs, often questioning their wisdom and changing
them into anti-proverbs.
The use and function of proverbs in film and music have also been studied, but this area definitely needs more attention. Donald Haase in his article
on “Is Seeing Believing? Proverbs and the Film Adaptation of a Fairy Tale”
(1990) has at least looked at the appearance of proverbs in Angela Carter’s
and Neil Jordan’s film version of her tale The Company of Wolves (1979) that
is based on the fairy tale Little Red Riding Hood. Of special value is also yet another chapter from Stephen D. Winick’s dissertation on “Proverb Is as
Proverb Does: Forrest Gump, the Catchphrase, and the Proverb” (Winick
1998: 83–162), in which he analyzes proverbial statements in the film Forrest
Gump (1994), including such “Gumpisms” as “Life is like a box of chocolates:
you never know what you’re gonna get” that has become a proverb owing to
the incredible popularity of this Hollywood film with its thousands of screenings. In the area of music, George B. Bryan in his article on “The Proverbial
W.S. Gilbert: An Index to Proverbs in the Works of Gilbert and Sullivan”
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(1999) shows how pervasive proverbs in fact are in popular music, and Steven
Folsom has done the same in his paper on “Proverbs in Recent American
Country Music: Form and Function in the Hits of 1986–87” (1993). And I
have discussed “Proverbs in Popular Songs” (Mieder 1989: 195–221) as well,
including such popular proverbial hits as Bob Dylan’s Like a Rolling Stone
(1965), Cher’s Apples Don’t Fall Far from the Tree (1973), and, of course, also
the Beatles’ song [Money] Can’t Buy Me Love (1964).
At the end of this review of scholarship and approaches with an emphasis
on publications in English, it is obvious that the ubiquitous proverbs enable
and empower paremiologists to study them literally everywhere at any time.
Modern paremiology is an absolutely open-ended phenomenon with many
new challenges lying ahead. There is no doubt that proverbs, those old gems
of generationally tested wisdom, help people in everyday life and communication to cope with the complexities of the modern human condition. The
traditional proverbs and their value system provide some basic structure, and
if their worldview does not fit a particular situation, they are quickly changed
into revealing and liberating anti-proverbs. And there are, of course, the new
proverbs of modern times, such as “Different strokes for different folks,” that
express a liberated worldview. Proverbs don’t always have to be didactic and
prescriptive; they can also be full of satire, irony, and humor. As such, the
thousands of proverbs that make up the stock of proverbial wisdom of all cultures represent not a universally valid but certainly a pragmatically useful
treasure. In retrospect, paremiologists have amassed a truly impressive body
of proverb scholarship upon which prospective paremiology can build in
good faith. Modern theoretical and empirical paremiology will doubtlessly
lead to new insights about human behavior and communication, and by
comparing these research results on an international basis, paremiologists
might add their bit to a humane and enlightened world order based on common sense and experienced wisdom.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Book-length studies are listed in the major bibliography at the end of this book.
Cross-references at the ends of entries correspond to collections listed in the bibliography.
Abadi, Michael C. 2000. “Proverbs as ESL [English as Second Language] Curriculum.” Proverbium 17: 1–22.
Abrahams, Roger D., and Barbara A. Babcock. 1977. “The Literary Use of Proverbs.”
Journal of American Folklore 90: 414–429; also in Mieder 1994: 415–437.
Arewa, E. Ojo, and Alan Dundes. 1964. “[Yoruba] Proverbs and the Ethnography of
Speaking Folklore.” American Anthropologist 66, part 2: 70–85.
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Arora, Shirley L. 1989. “On the Importance of Rotting Fish: A Proverb and Its Audience.” Western Folklore 48: 271–288.
———. 1994. “Proverbs and Prejudice: El Indio in Hispanic Proverbial Speech.”
Proverbium 11: 27–46; also in Mieder 2003: 17–36.
Arthurs, Jeffrey D. 1994. “Proverbs in Inspirational Literature: Sanctioning the
American Dream.” Journal of Communication and Religion 17: 1–15; also in
Mieder 2003: 37–52.
Ben-Amos, Dan. 1995. “Meditation on a Russian Proverb [‘Don’t say hop before you
have jumped and landed’] in Israel.” Proverbium 12: 13–26.
Boateng, Felix. 1985. “African Traditional Education: A [Proverb] Tool for Intergenerational Communication.” In African Culture: The Rhythms of Unity, ed. by
Molefi Kete Asante and Kariamu Welsh Asante, 109–122. Westport, Conn.:
Greenwood Press.
Brandes, Stanley H. 1974. “The Selection Process in Proverb Use: A Spanish Example.” Southern Folklore Quarterly 38: 167–186.
Briggs, Charles L. 1985. “The Pragmatics of Proverb Performances in New Mexican
Spanish.” American Anthropologist 87: 793–810; also in Mieder 1994: 317–349.
Bryan, George B. 1999. “The Proverbial W.S. Gilbert: An Index to Proverbs in the
Works of Gilbert and Sullivan.” Proverbium 16: 21–35.
Burke, Kenneth. 1941. “Literature [i.e., proverbs] as Equipment for Living.” In The
Philosophy of Literary Form: Studies in Symbolic Action, by K. Burke, 253–262.
Baton Rouge: Louisiana University Press.
Cram, David. 1983. “The Linguistic Status of the Proverb.” Cahiers de lexicologie 43:
53–71; also in Mieder 1994: 73–98.
Davis, Natalie Z. 1975. “Proverbial Wisdom and Popular Error.” In Society and Culture in Early Modern France, by N.Z. Davis, 227–267 and 336–346 (notes). Palo
Alto, Calif.: Stanford University Press.
Doerr, Karin. 2000. “‘To Each His Own’ (Jedem das Seine): The (Mis-)Use of German Proverbs in Concentration Camps and Beyond.” Proverbium 17: 71–90.
Doyle, Charles Clay. 1996. “On ‘New’ Proverbs and the Conservativeness of Proverb
Collections.” Proverbium 13: 69–84; also in Mieder 2003: 85–98.
Dundes, Alan. 1975. “Slurs International: Folk Comparisons of Ethnicity and National Character.” Southern Folklore Quarterly 39: 15–38; also in Mieder 1994:
183–209.
Eret, Dylan. 2001. “‘The Past Does not Equal the Future’: Anthony Robbins’ SelfHelp Maxims as Therapeutic Forms of Proverbial Rhetoric.” Proverbium 18:
77–103.
Finnegan, Ruth. 1970. “Proverbs.” In Oral Literature in Africa, by R. Finnegan,
389–425. Oxford: Clarendon; also in Mieder and Dundes 1981 (1994): 10–42.
Folsom, Steven. 1993. “Proverbs in Recent American Country Music: Form and
Function in the Hits of 1986–87.” Proverbium 10: 65–88.
Friedman, Albert. 1974. “‘When Adam Delved . . . ’: Contexts of an Historic
Proverb.” Harvard English Studies 4: 213–230; also in Mieder 1994: 495–513.
Scholarship and Approaches
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Gibbs, Raymond W., and Dinara Beitel. 1995. “What Proverb Understanding Reveals about How People Think.” Psychological Bulletin 118: 133–154; also in
Mieder 2003: 109–162.
Goodwin, Paul D., and Joseph W. Wenzel. 1979. “Proverbs and Practical Reasoning:
A Study in Socio-Logic.” The Quarterly Journal of Speech 65: 289–302; also in
Mieder and Dundes 1981 (1994): 140–160.
Gorham, Donald R. 1956. “A Proverbs Test for Clinical and Experimental Use.” Psychological Reports 2: 1–12.
Grzybek, Peter. 1987. “Foundations of Semiotic Proverb Study.” Proverbium 4:
39–85; see also Mieder 1994: 31–71.
Grzybek, Peter, and Christoph Chlosta. 1993. “Grundlagen der empirischen Sprichwortforschung.” Proverbium 10: 89–128.
Haase, Donald. 1990. “Is Seeing Believing? Proverbs and the Film Adaptation of a
Fairy Tale.” Proverbium 7: 89–104.
Harnish, Robert M. 1993. “Communicating with Proverbs.” Communication &
Cognition 26: 265–290; also in Mieder 2003: 163–184.
Harris, Clement A. 1933. “Music in the World’s Proverbs.” Musical Quarterly 19:
382–392.
Hasan-Rokem, Galit. 1992. “Proverbs as Inter-Ethnic Dialogue in Israel.” Jewish
Folklore and Ethnology Review 14: 52–55.
Hernadi, Paul, and Francis Steen. 1999. “The Tropical Landscapes of Proverbia: A
Crossdisciplinary Travelogue.” Style 33: 1–20; also in Mieder 2003: 185–204.
Honeck, Richard P., and Clare T. Kibler. 1984. “The Role of Imagery, Analogy, and
Instantiation in Proverb Comprehension.” Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 13:
393–414.
Jason, Heda. 1971. “Proverbs in Society: The Problem of Meaning and Function.”
Proverbium, no. 17: 617–623.
Jones, Malcolm. 1989. “The Depiction of Proverbs in Late Medieval Art.” In Europhras 88: Phraséologie contrastive, ed. by Gertrud Gréciano, 205–223. Strasbourg, France: Université des Sciences Humaines.
Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara. 1973. “Toward a Theory of Proverb Meaning.”
Proverbium, no. 22: 821–827; also in Mieder and Dundes 1981 [1994]: 111–121.
Kunstmann, John G. 1939. “‘The Bird that Fouls Its Nest.” Southern Folklore Quarterly 3: 75–91; also in Mieder and Dundes 1981 (1994): 190–210.
Kunzle, David. 1977. “Bruegel’s Proverb Painting and the World Upside Down.”
The Art Bulletin 59: 197–202.
Kuusi, Matti. 1967. “Fatalistic Traits in Finnsih Proverbs.” In Fatalistic Beliefs in Religion, Folklore and Literare, ed. by Helmer Ringgren, 89–96. Stockholm:
Almqvist & Wiksell; also in Mieder and Dundes 1981 (1994): 275–283.
Lau, Kimberly J. 1996. “‘It’s about Time’: The Ten Proverbs Most Frequently Used
in Newspapers and Their Relation to American Values.” Proverbium 13: 135–159.
Levin, Isidor. 1968–1969. “Überlegungen zur demoskopischen Parömiologie.”
Proverbium, no. 11: 289–293 and no. 13: 361–366.
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Lévy, Isaac Jack, and Rosemary Lévy Zumwalt. 1990. “A Conversation in Proverbs:
Judeo-Spanish Refranes in Context.” Proverbium 7: 117–132; also in Mieder
2003: 255–269.
Lieber, Michael D. 1984. “Analogic Ambiguity: A Paradox of Proverb Usage.” Journal of American Folklore 97: 423–441; also in Mieder 1994: 99–126.
Lister, Alfred. 1874–1875. “Chinese Proverbs and Their Lessons.” The China Review
3: 129–138; also in Mieder and Dundes 1981 (1994): 242–256.
Louis, Cameron. 2000. “Proverbs and the Politics of Language.” Proverbium 17:
173–194; also in Mieder 2003: 271–292.
Massing, Jean Michel. 1995. “From Greek Proverb to Soap Advert: Washing the
Ethiopian.” Journal of the Wartburg and Courtauld Institutes 58: 180–201.
McKelvie, Donald. 1965. “Proverbial Elements in the Oral Tradition of an English
Urban Industrial Region.” Journal of the Folklore Institute 2: 244–261.
McKenna, Kevin J. 1991. “‘Na poslovitsu ni suda ni raspravy’: The Role of Proverbs
in the Russian Language Curriculum.” Russian Language Journal 45: 17–37.
———. 1996. “Proverbs and Perestroika: An Analysis of Pravda Headlines,
1988–1991.” Proverbium 13: 215–233; also in Mieder 2003: 293–310.
———. 2002. “Politics and the Russian Proverb: A Retrospective of Pravda Political
Cartoons in the 1990s.” Proverbium 19: 225–252.
———. 2003. “A Nation Adrift: The Russian ‘Ship of State’ in Pravda Political Cartoons During the Decade of the 1990s.” Proverbium 20: 237–258.
McKenzie, Alyce M. 1996. “‘Different Strokes for Different Folks’: America’s Quintessential Postmodern Proverb.” Theology Today 53: 201–212; also in Mieder
2003: 311–324.
Mieder, Barbara and Wolfgang. 1977. “Tradition and Innovation: Proverbs in Advertising.” Journal of Popular Culture 11: 308–319; also in Mieder and Dundes
1981 (1994): 309–322.
Mieder, Wolfgang. 1978. “The Use of Proverbs in Psychological Testing.” Journal of
the Folklore Institute 15: 45–55.
———. 1981. “The Proverbial Three Wise Monkeys: ‘Hear No Evil, See No Evil,
Speak No Evil.’” Midwestern Journal of Language and Folklore 7: 5–38; also in
Mieder 1987: 157–177 and 255–259 (notes).
———. 1982. “Proverbs in Nazi Germany: The Promulgation of Anti-Semitism and
Stereotypes through Folklore.” Journal of American Folklore 95: 435–464; also in
Mieder 1993: 225–255.
———. 1985. “Neues zur demoskopischen Sprichwortforschung.” Proverbium 2:
307–328.
———. 1986 (1988). “Wilhelm Grimm’s Proverbial Additions in the Fairy Tales.”
Proverbium 3: 59–83; also in The Brothers Grimm and Folktale, ed. by James
McGlathery et al., 112–132. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
———. 1990. “Prolegomena to Prospective Paremiography.” Proverbium 7: 133–144.
———. 1992. “Paremiological Minimum and Cultural Literacy.” In Creativity and
Tradition in Folklore: New Directions, ed. Simon J. Bronner, 185–203. Logan:
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297–316.
———. 1996. “‘No Tickee, No Washee.’” Western Folklore 55: 1–40; also in Mieder
1997: 160–189 and 227–235 (notes).
———. 1997. “Modern Paremiology in Retrospect and Prospect.” In Embracing the
Baobab Tree: The African Proverb in the 21st Century, ed. by Willem Saayman,
3–36. Pretoria: University of South Africa; also in Mieder 2000b: 7–36.
———. 2000. “‘It’s Not a President’s Business to Catch Flies’: Proverbial Rhetoric in
Inaugural Addresses of American Presidents.” Southern Folklore 57: 188–232; also
in Mieder 2003: 325–366.
———. 2003. “‘Government of the People, by the People, for the People’: The Making and Meaning of an American Proverb of Democracy.” Proverbium 20: 259–308.
Nierenberg, Jess. 1983. “Proverbs in Graffiti: Taunting Traditional Wisdom.” Maledicta 7: 41–58; also in Mieder 1994: 543–561.
Nippold, Marilyn A., Linda D. Uhden, and Ilsa E. Schwarz. 1997. “Proverb Explanation Through the Lifespan: A Developmental Study of Adolescents and
Adults.” Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 40: 245–253; also in
Mieder 2003: 367–383.
Nuessel, Frank. 1999. “Proverbs and Metaphoric Language in Second-Language Acquisition.” Studies in Applied Psychosemiotics 16: 157–178; also in Mieder 2003:
395–412.
Nwachukwu-Agbada, J.O.J. 1988. “‘Bèkeè’ [the white man] in Igbo Proverbial
Lore.” Proverbium 5: 137–144.
———. 1990. “Origin, Meaning and Value of Igbo Historical Proverbs.” Proverbium 7: 185–206.
Obelkevich, James. 1987. “Proverbs and Social History.” In The Social History of
Language, ed. by Peter Burke and Roy Porter, 43–72. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press; also in Mieder 1994: 211–252.
Obeng, Samuel Gyasi. 1996. “The Proverb as a Mitigating and Politeness Strategy in
Akan Discourse.” Anthropological Linguistics 38: 521–549; also in Mieder 2003:
413–442.
Orkin, Martin. 1978. “The Poor Cat’s Adage and Other Shakespearian Proverbs in
Elizabethan Grammar-School Education.” English Studies in Africa 21: 79–88.
Parker, A.A. 1963. The Humour of Spanish Proverbs. London: The Hispanic & LusoBrazilian Councils; also in Mieder and Dundes 1981 (1994): 257–274.
Permiakov, Grigorii L’vovich. 1971. Paremiologicheskie eksperiment. Materialy dlia
paremiologicheskogo minimuma. Moskva, Russia: Nauka.
———. 1982 (1989). “K voprosu o russkom paremiologicheskom minimume.” In
Slovari i lingvostranovedenie, ed. by E.M. Vereshchagina, 131–137. Moskva, Russia: Russkii iazyk. Translated into English by Kevin J. McKenna as “On the Question of a Russian Paremiological Minimum.” Proverbium 6: 91–102.
———. 1985. 300 obshcheupotrebitel’nykh russkikh poslovits i pogovorok. Moskva,
Russia: Russkii iazyk.
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Petrova, Roumyana. 2003. “Comparing Proverbs as Cultural Texts.” Proverbium 20:
331–344.
Prahlad, Sw. Anand. 1994. “‘No Guts, No Glory’: Proverbs, Values and Image among
Anglo-American University Student.” Southern Folklore 51: 285–298; also in
Mieder 2003: 443–458.
Raymond, Joseph. 1956. “Tensions in Proverbs: More Light on International Understanding.” Western Folklore 15: 153–158; also in Mieder and Dundes 1981
(1994): 300–308.
Rogers, Tim B. 1986. “Psychological Approaches to Proverbs: A Treatise on the Import of Context.” Canadian Folklore Canadien 8: 87–104.
———. 1989. “The Use of Slogans, Colloquialisms, and Proverbs in the Treatment
of Substance Addiction: A Psychological Application of Proverbs.” Proverbium 6:
103–112.
Ronesi, Lynne. 2000. “‘Mightier than the Sword’: A Look at Proverbial Prejudice.”
Proverbium 17: 329–347.
Rothstein, Robert A. 1969. “The Poetics of Proverbs.” In Studies Presented to Professor Roman Jakobson by His Students, ed. by Charles Gribble, 265–274. Cambridge,
Mass.: Slavica Publications.
Seitel, Peter. 1969. “Proverbs: A Social Use of Metaphor.” Genre 2: 143–161; also in
Mieder and Dundes 1981 (1994): 122–139.
Silverman-Weinreich, Beatrice. 1978. “Towards a Structural Analysis of Yiddish
Proverbs.” Yivo Annual of Jewish Social Science 17: 1–20; also in Mieder and Dundes 1981 (1994): 65–85.
Stanciu, Dumitru. 1986. “The Proverb and the Problems of Education.” Proverbium
3: 153–178.
Sullivan, Margaret A. 1991. “Bruegel’s Proverb Painting: Renaissance Art for a Humanist Audience.” The Art Bulletin 73: 431–466; also in Mieder 1994: 253–295.
Sweterlitsch, Richard. 1985. “Reexamining the Proverb in the Child Ballad.” Proverbium 2: 233–256.
———. 2001. “Josh Billings: His Anti-Proverbs and Comic Aphorisms.” Proverbium 18: 319–327.
Taylor, Archer. 1971–1973. “The Collection and Study of Tales and Proverbs.”
Béaloideas 39–41: 320–328.
Tóthné Litovkina, Anna. 1994. “The Most Powerful Markers of Proverbiality: Perception of Proverbs and Familiarity with Them Among 40 Americans.” Semiotische Berichte, nos. 1–4: 227–353.
———. 1998. “An Analysis of Popular American Proverbs and Their Use in Language Teaching.” In Die heutige Bedeutung oraler Tradition: Ihre Archivierung, Publikation und Index-Erschließung, ed. by Walther Heissig and Rüdiger Schott,
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Valdaeva, Tatiana. 2003. “Anti-Proverbs or New Proverbs: The Use of English AntiProverbs and Their Stylistic Analysis.” Proverbium 20: 379–390.
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Q
Four
Contexts
There are again two parts to this fourth section. The first six subsections show
how proverbs function in literary works, letters, speeches, and political writings. There are two analyses from the eighteenth century dealing with Lord
Chesterfield’s arguments against the use of proverbs and Benjamin Franklin’s
opposing view of seeing a high ethical value in these traditional bits of wisdom. The next two discussions are concerned with the nineteenth-century
use of proverbs by Abraham Lincoln in his fight against slavery and Charles
Dickens’s desire to depict social realities through language. The final couple
of subsections look at two major figures of the twentieth century, namely
Winston S. Churchill, who masterfully employed proverbs in his war rhetoric, and Bertolt Brecht, whose dialectical use of proverbs dealt with the worrisome human condition. Once again these six accounts are based on my
much longer former publications that contain many more references and detailed bibliographical information. These studies have been stripped of their
scholarly apparatus to enhance their readability and to present a general understanding of the effective integration of proverbs into all sorts of communication during the past three centuries. The original publications are listed
under my name in the selected bibliography of this fourth section of the book
for those readers who wish to get more detailed information.
The second part of this section is comprised of five groups of texts that
show how proverbs function in particular contexts. The first deals with Benjamin Franklin’s famous essay “The Way to Wealth” (1758) that includes over
100 proverbs to instruct people in solid work ethics and a commonsense approach to life’s trials and tribulations. The second subsection presents poems
and songs that include proverbs as didactic and sapient messages. These poetic texts also indicate that poets and songwriters do not look at proverbs as
161
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Proverbs
sacrosanct statements. In fact, they do enjoy questioning or parodying them
in order to get their readers to think critically about their purported wisdom.
This is also the intent of the caricatures, cartoons, and comic strips that are
based on proverbs. While some of them cite the proverbs in their original
wording, most of them alter them satirically, ironically, or humorously into
revealing anti-proverbs. Copywriters of advertisements also employ proverbs
either traditionally or innovatively to get the attention of consumers, and the
same is true for journalists using proverbs or anti-proverbs in newspaper and
magazine headlines. And, of course, there are also graffiti, bumper stickers,
and T-shirts that exhibit (un)altered proverbs as old or new messages of the
modern age. The three subsections on proverbs in the mass media contain
numerous illustrations that indicate how metaphorical proverbs as headlines
and captions work hand in hand with pictures to bring about meaningful
communication. Together, all contextualized proverbs are solid proof that
proverbs are by no means out-of-date. If traditional texts do not seem to fit a
particular context, they can always be twisted into shape by changing a word
or two. And, to be sure, modern people from poets to slogan writers are perfectly capable of creating statements based on proverbial structures that over
time might well become the new proverbs of modernity.
“A MAN OF FASHION NEVER HAS RECOURSE TO
PROVERBS”: LORD CHESTERFIELD’S TILTING AT
PROVERBIAL WINDMILLS
Certain unfounded generalizations and unproven claims exist in all intellectual attempts to draw sweeping conclusions. Even Archer Taylor as the
grand master of proverb studies fell into this trap in a chapter on “Proverbs
in Literature” in his celebrated and classic book on The Proverb (1931).
Commenting on the fact that “different attitudes [exist] toward proverbs in
different ages,” he observes correctly that the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries exhibit a widespread interest in folk wisdom, but he goes too far in his
claim that “during the eighteenth century a reaction set in: the rationalistic
temper found little to admire in proverbs.” While such eighteenth-century
authors as William Blake, Denis Diderot, Henry Fielding, Johann Wolfgang
von Goethe, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Jonathan Swift, and François
Marie Voltaire do in fact question or ridicule the wisdom of proverbs at
times, they also see their communicative value as strategically placed moral
and didactic statements. In the United States, one glance at the writings of
Benjamin Franklin will clearly show what ethical significance proverbs had
in this young democracy. In addition, it must not be forgotten that enlight-
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ened scholars with interest in folklore put together major proverb collections at this time, thus indicating that there was a persuasive interest in registering and preserving proverbs and proverbial expressions. Proverbs did
not die out in the Age of Reason even though there were forces that argued
vigorously against their commonsense philosophy. There is then merely a
certain ambivalence towards proverbs that is somewhat reminiscent of the
critical view of proverbs today. But no zealous spirit, no matter how convinced of the absolute invalidity and stupidity of proverbs, could possibly
have succeeded in ridding the language, both written and oral, of this formulaic treasure of wisdom.
Yet there was such an individual who tried his very best to do exactly that.
It was Philip Dormer Stanhope, fourth Earl of Chesterfield (1694–1773),
who in two letters to his illegitimate son Philip Stanhope (1732–1768) argued vehemently against the value and use of proverbs. Always the teacher of
proper social behavior in upper society, he instructed his son in a letter of July
25, 1741, to make sure that he would follow the manners and speech of people of fashion:
There is, likewise, an awkwardness of expression and words, most carefully to be avoided; such as false English, bad pronunciation, old sayings, and common proverbs; which are so many proofs of having kept
bad or low company. For example, if, instead of saying that tastes are
different, and that every man has his own peculiar one, you should let
off a proverb, and say, That what is one man’s meat is another man’s poison; or else, Everyone as they like, as the good man said when he kissed
his cow, everybody would be persuaded that you had never kept company with anybody above footmen and housemaids.
It is of interest to note that in his eagerness to explain his point, Lord (appointed 1730) Chesterfield lowers himself to cite something as crude as a
wellerism, albeit in a somewhat “cleansed” variant. The more vulgar version
would be “‘Every man where he likes,’ quoth the goodman when he kissed his
cow.” In typical folk humor, the “where of the kiss” might well include the tail
end of that animal. And how disheartened would the Earl be if he could have
known that his sentence that “Tastes are different” has been registered as a
proverb as early as 1803. In any case, these few epistolary lines are a definite
sign that even a proverb despiser can’t escape the occasional and unintentional
use of proverbial wisdom.
But be that as it may, the summum bonum of his two tirades against
proverbs appears in a lengthy letter of September 27, 1749. Always interested
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in instructing his son in the proper and sophisticated use of language, Lord
Chesterfield gets quite carried away on his rhetorical soapbox. Of special importance is his preoccupation with the words “vulgar” and “vulgarism,” the
latter of which is for him synonymous with “proverb”:
DEAR BOY: A vulgar, ordinary way of thinking, acting, or speaking, implies a low education, and a habit of low company. Young people contract it at school, or among servants, with whom they are too often used
to converse; but after they frequent good company, they must want attention and observation very much, if they do not lay it quite aside;
and, indeed, if they do not, good company will be very apt to lay them
aside. The various types of vulgarisms are infinite; I cannot pretend to
point them out to you; but I will give some examples, by which you
may guess the rest. [ . . . ]
Vulgarism in language is the next and distinguishing characteristic of
bad company and a bad education. A man of fashion avoids nothing
with more care than that. Proverbial expressions and trite sayings are the
flowers of the rhetoric of a vulgar man. Would he say that men differ in
their tastes; he both supports and adorns that opinion by the good old
saying, as he respectfully calls it, that WHAT IS ONE MAN’S MEAT, IS ANOTHER MAN’S POISON. A man of fashion never has recourse to proverbs
and vulgar aphorisms; uses neither favorite words nor hard words; but
takes great care to speak very correctly and grammatically, and to pronounce properly; that is, according to the usage of the best companies.
While repeating the proverb “One man’s meat is another man’s poison” from
his previous letter, Lord Chesterfield drops the “tasteless” wellerism from his
denunciation. Yet this time he also includes explicitly proverbial expressions
among his scorned “vulgarisms.”
But who then was this Lord Chesterfield about whom all of this proverbial
fuss has and is being made? He was an extremely dedicated and diligent public servant as a member of the House of Lords and as Viceroy of Ireland as
well as Ambassador at The Hague, who nevertheless found the time to study
his contemporaries and to reflect upon the attitudes and mores of his age in
countless letters, essays, and speeches. In particular, he expended much energy in the education both of his son and his godson of the same name, albeit
primarily through a never-ending stream of didactic and edifying letters
(about 430 letters to his son). And it is exactly these letters as an exemplification of how to become a perfect member of upper society for which Lord
Chesterfield gained so much notoriety as well as fame.
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The basis of Lord Chesterfield’s educational philosophy and pedagogical
program consisted above all of the conviction that there are the social graces,
which include good manners, moderation, civility, self-control, politeness,
and the proper behavior in all settings. Driven by his own “pedagogomania,”
Chesterfield never tired of insisting on these behavioral graces. Basically he
was teaching the pragmatic skills of social life, and adding a good deal of general knowledge to this for good measure. On October 9, 1746, he writes to
his son:
Your destination is the great and busy world; your immediate object is
the affairs, the interests, and the history, the constitutions, the customs,
and the manners of the several parts of Europe. In this, any man of
common sense may, by common application, be sure to excel. Ancient
and modern history are, by attention, easily attainable. Geography and
chronology the same, none of them requiring any uncommon share of
genius or invention. Speaking and Writing [sic], clearly, correctly, and
with ease and grace, are certainly to be acquired, by reading the best authors with care, and by attention to the best living models. [ . . . ]
If care and application are necessary to the acquiring of those qualifications, without which you can never be considerable, nor make a figure in the world, they are not less necessary with regard to the lesser
accomplishments, which are requisite to make you agreeable and pleasing in society. In truth, whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing
well; and nothing can be done well without attention.
There then is the program of social and intellectual education with two
proverbial statements to drive home the point. Chesterfield is positively obsessed with the proverbial expression “to make a figure” (i.e., to show proper
social behavior) and the proverb “Whatever is worth doing at all, is worth
doing well.” These are two leitmotifs that reoccur throughout these instructive letters based on “good sense and good taste.” As can be seen, there are
natural lapses back into good old plain English with its expressive proverbs
and proverbial expressions. Neither Chesterfield nor his age could live without them!
But it is time to take a look first at such textual references, where Chesterfield employs proverbs as “vulgar” expressions. And what a surprise one finds
already with the first example! Even though Chesterfield wants to interpret
proverbs as negative verbal and behavioral signs that should be avoided, he
must admit that there is wisdom in some of them too good to be ignored.
Giving his son once again numerous commonsense lessons on life, he sum-
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marizes them with a fitting proverb in his letter of July 20, 1748: “All those
things, in the common course of life, depend entirely upon the manner; and,
in that respect, the vulgar saying is true, That one man can better steal a
horse, than another look over the hedge.” Chesterfield is even capable of declaring one of these despicable vulgar proverbs as absolutely true in order to
drive home a point: “It is a vulgar, ordinary saying, but it is a very true one,
that one should always put the best foot foremost.” He simply seems to have
the need of distancing himself from these preformulated expressions of the
lower class. That is, of course, where his fundamental error lies. Proverbs express traditional wisdom shared by all people of a culture. After all, Chesterfield knows them only too well and is clearly incapable and yes, unwilling, to
avoid them completely. If proverbs can express matters so effectively, then
why label them as vulgar at all?
And sure enough, more often than not Chesterfield fails to include this superfluous and incorrect label, clearly indicating that proverbial language is
part of his written style and quite certainly of his oral speech. He frequently
Cited from Playboy (March 1977), p. 177.
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167
employs proverbs in a very straightforward traditional fashion as a valuable
and didactic piece of advice. In those cases, proverbs are not at all questioned
or labeled as inappropriate for the elegant upper class. In fact, they become
major instruments for the proper education of his son, serving an absolutely
legitimate purpose:
A man of sense knows how to make the most of his time, and put out
his whole sum either to interest or to pleasure; he is never idle, but constantly employed either in amusements or in study. It is a saying, that
idleness is the mother of all vice. At least, it is certain that laziness is the
inheritance of fools; and nothing is so despicable as a sluggard.
For though people should not do well for the sake of rewards, yet those
who do well ought in justice to be rewarded. One should do well for the
sake of doing well, and virtue is its own reward; that is, the consciousness of having done right makes one happy enough even without any
other reward.
These short statements give solid moral or behavioral advice, and the
proverbs serve to underscore the intended lesson. Here and there, but seldom
indeed, does Chesterfield argue against a proverb as in the following two examples:
I knew once a very covetous, sordid fellow, who used frequently to say,
“Take care of the pence; for the pounds will take care of themselves.”
This was a just and sensible reflection of a miser. I recommend to you
to take care of the minutes; for hours will take care of themselves.
Those who aim at perfection will come infinitely nearer it than those
desponding or indolent spirits, who foolishly say to themselves: Nobody is perfect; perfection is unattainable; to attempt it is chimerical; I
shall do as well as others; why then should I give myself trouble to be
what I never can, and what, according to the common course of things,
I need not be, PERFECT?
But such quibbles are rare and indicate a perfectly normal ambivalent reaction to proverbs. It will be an unusual person who would buy into the wisdom of every proverb in every situation! And these few negative reactions on
the part of Chesterfield certainly cannot be regarded as a convincing proof of
his fundamental dislike of proverbs.
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Proverbs
How much he actually likes and believes in traditional folk wisdom becomes evident in his use of two favorite proverbs. Being the pragmatic expounder of solid work ethics, he definitely has a predilection towards the
proverb “Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.” Chesterfield
employed it several times in his letters, obviously advocating its plain truth:
Many people lose a great deal of their time by laziness; they loll and
yawn in a great chair, tell themselves that they have not time to begin
anything then, and that it will do as well another time. This is a most
unfortunate disposition, and the greatest obstruction to both knowledge and business. [ . . . ] You are but just listed in the world, and must
be active, diligent, indefatigable. If ever you propose commanding with
dignity, you must serve up to it with diligence. Never put off till tomorrow what you can do to-day.
Use yourself, therefore, in time to be alert and diligent in your little
concerns; never procrastinate, never put off till to-morrow what you
can do to-day; and never do two things at a time; pursue your object, be
it what it will, steadily and indefatigably; and let any difficulties (if surmountable) rather animate than slacken your endeavors. Perseverance
has surprising effects.
But there is yet another proverb that served Chesterfield as a leitmotif for teaching his son the most basic principle of human behavior, namely the biblical
golden rule of “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” (Matt.
7:12) in its various forms. On September 27, 1748, he summarized the entire
purpose of his moral teaching thus: “Pray let not quibbles of lawyers, no refinements of casuists, break into the plain notions of right and wrong, which every
man’s right reason and plain common sense suggest to him. To do as you would
be done by, is the plain, sure, and undisputed rule of morality and justice. Stick to
that.” Nowhere is there an argument with this moral rule, and Chesterfield also
quite expectedly by now accepted other biblical proverbs as invaluable truisms.
Yet another group of proverbs stands out in these fascinating letters,
namely the proverbial wisdom from other languages like Latin, French, Italian, and Spanish. As a man of the political world, the polyglot Chesterfield
had lived and traveled widely in Europe. Again and again he advises his son
to study French, Italian, or German, and not surprisingly he makes use of the
rich proverb repertoire of these languages and cultures.
Above all, Chesterfield believes in the classical Latin proverb of “A healthy
mind in a healthy body.” This he considers one of the basic laws of life, quot-
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169
ing it four times in Latin only without seeing any particular need to expound
on its obvious wisdom in any detail: “Mens sana in corpore sano, is the truest
description of human happiness; I think you have them both at present; take
care to keep them; it is in your power to do it,” “Mens sana in corpore sano, is
the first and greatest blessing. I would add et pulchro [and beautiful], to complete it. May you have that and every other!” and “You have, too, mens sana
in corpore sano, the greatest blessing of all.” He certainly is not negating these
old proverbs and is far from pushing them away as vulgar expressions. It
helps, of course, that they are cited in the learned language of Latin, a language that the “vulgar” would not know. But proverbs they are nevertheless!
And then there is that Spanish proverb that Chesterfield cites three times
in English only. It suits him just fine since it does express very candidly how
people form their opinions about others. In all three cases Chesterfield explicitly states that he is dealing with a proverb and that this wisdom is indeed
true:
There is good sense in the Spanish saying, “Tell me whom you live with,
and I will tell you who you are.” Make it therefore your business, wherever you are, to get into that company which everybody in the place allows to be the best company next to their own; which is the best
definition that I can give you of good company.
Chesterfield is correct in calling the text in this reference from 1748 a Spanish proverb, since it does exist in that language as “Dime con quien andas,
diréte quien eres. Tell me what company you keep, and I will tell you who you
are.” But when he used it for the third time as a fitting leitmotif to comment
on the proper company that one should keep, he must finally have realized
that this proverb was also long established since the sixteenth century in the
English language as “Tell me with whom you go, and I’ll tell you who you
are.” And how shocked might the good Lord have been, if he had found out
that this proverb is actually of medieval Latin origin. In fact, the Latin text
“Noscitur ex socio, qui non cognoscitur ex se” (One recognizes him by his
companions whom one does not recognize from himself ) was subsequently
translated into most European languages, making it a generally accepted truism about human behavior. In any case, Lord Chesterfield approved of the
content of the proverb, and there is no indication whatsoever that he considered it too “vulgar” for his educational epistles.
The situation is quite similar with a number of French proverbs cited in
the letters. It must, however, be added that Chesterfield was absolutely fluent
in French and that he delighted in writing French letters. In an English-
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language letter of 1751, he cites a French proverb, once again dealing with
proper behavior in company:
Have a watch over yourself never to say anything that either the whole
company, or any one person in it, can reasonably or probably take ill,
and remember the French saying, qu’il ne faut pas parler de corde, dans
la maison d’un pendu. Good nature usually charms, even all those who
have none, and it is impossible to be amiable without both the reality
and the appearances of it.
But what is it, snobbery or actual ignorance, which kept Chesterfield from
citing the English version of this proverb? After all, this folk wisdom is once
again quite common in Europe and current in English since the late sixteenth
century as “Never mention a rope in the house of a man who has been
hanged.” It seems that Lord Chesterfield wanted to add some linguistic
prowess to his style by employing foreign-language equivalents of English
proverbs. Perhaps he felt that the French language would hide the “vulgar”
tone of English proverbs while maintaining their undeniable wisdom and
truth, something that even Chesterfield seems not to have been able to live
without in his letters.
Lord Chesterfield simply could not escape the pitfalls of folk speech in
general and proverbs in particular. In a letter of June 13, 1758, he even cites
merely the first half of an English and a French proverb, obviously convinced
of their general currency. Speaking of marriages, he quips, “The lady has
wanted a man so long, that she now compounds for half a one. Half a loaf—.”
And then he closes his letter with a more personal reflection concerning his
health: “I have been worse since my last letter; but am now, I think, recovering; tant va la cruche à l’eau;—and I have been there very often.” Surely his
son and his contemporaries knew the sixteenth-century proverb “Half a loaf
is better than no bread,” and the obvious sexual implication in this context
will have been understood as well. Regarding the truncated version of the
French proverb “Tant va la cruche à l’eau, qu’à la fin elle se brise” of medieval
Latin origin, he might just as well have cited its fourteenth-century English
translation “The pitcher goes so often to the water that it is broken at last.”
But no matter in what language the polyglot Chesterfield cites the proverb, he
is employing a particularly popular proverb with frequent appearances in literature and art during the eighteenth century (see Vinken 1958; Zick 1969).
One thing is for certain, Lord Chesterfield’s letters and his Age of Enlightenment are not void of proverbs, and there is no proverbial blackout during
this time of reason and rationality. In fact, Chesterfield quite literally de-
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lighted in their repeated use, and in the few occasions that he questioned their
value, he is merely following normal disagreements with proverbs in particular contexts. Above all, however, his two letters of 1741 and 1749 calling for
the careful avoidance of proverbs by educated and fashionable people are
nothing but words spoken to the wind. In half-heartedly fighting their employment or in claiming that they disappeared during the eighteenth century
from common use, both Lord Chesterfield and scholars have tilted at proverbial windmills. People then and now do have recourse to common proverbs,
and they use these traditional metaphors as part of the communicative art of
indirection.
“EARLY TO BED AND EARLY TO RISE”: FROM
PROVERB TO BENJAMIN FRANKLIN AND BACK
In a short essay entitled “The Truth and Myths about Benjamin Franklin”
that appeared in the 1990 issue of The Old Farmer’s Almanac commemorating the bicentennial of Benjamin Franklin’s (1706–1790) death, David Lord
repeats the often-stated claim that “Franklin coined countless catch phrases
[i.e., proverbs] of morality and wisdom in his peerless Poor Richard’s Almanac.” Yet nothing could be further from the truth, as Robert Newcomb, in
particular, has shown in his seminal study The Sources of Benjamin Franklin’s
Sayings of Poor Richard (1957). Among Franklin and proverb scholars it is
now generally known that this pragmatist of commonsense philosophy relied
heavily on various proverb collections for the numerous proverbial texts that
he included in his instructive and entertaining Poor Richard’s Almanack,
which he published for 25 years from 1733 to 1758 (see Barbour 1974).
Many of these proverbs he integrated verbatim into the almanacs, but as an
acute “proverb stylist” he also reformulated some of them in his own wording
(see Meister 1952–1953). They became current owing to the unrivaled popularity of the almanacs, of which about 10,000 copies were sold every year. A
very few of his own creations, at most 5 percent of the total of 1,044 proverbial texts that appeared in the almanacs, did become proverbs in their own
right, notably “Three removes is (are) as bad as a fire,” “Laziness travels so
slowly, that poverty soon overtakes it” and “There will be sleeping enough in
the grave” (see Gallacher 1949).
It is important to note that Franklin himself tried to rectify this popular
error at the end of his famous preface to the almanac of 1758, which he wrote
in the summer of 1757 and which became an international best-seller essay
with the title “The Way to Wealth.” At the end of this masterful treatise on
virtue, prosperity, prudence, and above all economic and monetary common
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sense he openly admitted the following: “[ . . . ] my vanity was wonderfully delighted with it [that people quote “his” proverbs by adding the formula “as
Poor Richard says”], though I was conscious that not a tenth part of the wisdom was my own, [ . . . ], but rather the gleanings that I made of the sense of
all ages and nations.” There was thus no intentional deception on Franklin’s
part, but in keeping with the spirit of the time he certainly didn’t mind copying proverbs and maxims out of books without citing his sources and taking
a bit of credit where he could.
But what is the origin and history of the proverb “Early to bed and early to
rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise” for which Benjamin Franklin
appears to have been but an intermediate popularizer and at best an apocryphal source? The first recorded reference of this proverb in the English language is an early variant that appeared in A Treatyse of Fysshynge wyth an Angle
dating from 1496:
Who soo woll vse the game of anglynge: he must ryse erly. [ . . . ] As the
olde englysshe prouverbe sayth in this wyse. Who soo woll ryse erly
shall be holy helthy & zely.
This proverb does not yet talk about “going to bed early,” and the triad of
“holy helthy & zely” (i.e., happy, fortunate) does not yet completely agree with
the proverb as it is cited later, but this variant is clearly a precursor. That the
author introduces the text with the introductory formula “as the olde englysshe prouverbe sayth in this wyse” is, of course, of great importance in establishing the fact that the proverb might be considerably older than 1496,
dating perhaps from the middle or even the beginning of the fifteenth century.
The second historical reference stems from The Book of Husbandry (1523)
by Anthony Fitzherbert who states:
At grammar-scole I lerned a verse, that is this, Sanat, sanctificat, et ditat
surgere mane. That is to say, Erly rysyng maketh a man hole in body,
holer in soule, and rycher in goodes.
Fitzherbert points out that he learned the Latin verse “Sanat, sanctificat, et
ditat surgere mane” in grammar school and cites the English version as its
translation. This naturally leads to the important question of what came
first—the Latin or the English proverb? Realizing that Fitzherbert must have
been in grammar school around 1480, this Latin text is certainly older than
the English variant from the 1496 treatise on fishing. The medieval Latin
proverb appears after 1576 in many Latin proverb collections throughout Eu-
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173
rope, but not in Erasmus of Rotterdam’s famous Adagia (1500ff.). Since it
cannot be traced to any of the classical Latin proverb collections either, it appears to belong to the group of common medieval Latin proverbs that were
used in European schools for language instruction. It thus is probably justified to conjecture that the English proverb “Early to bed and early to rise,
makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise” has its roots in the Latin language of
the Middle Ages.
By 1639, when John Clarke published his bilingual proverb collection
Paroemiologia Anglo-Latina, the English proverb had found its final wording
in print that Franklin used some 100 years later and that is still the most common form today. Under the key word “diligentia” Clarke juxtaposes the English and Latin texts: “Earely to bed and earely to rise, makes a man healthy,
wealthy, and wise / Sanat, sanctificat, ditat quoque surgere mane.” Twenty
years later the proverb appears in this exact wording in James Howell’s important polyglot collection Paroimiografia. Proverbs, or, Old Sayed Savves &
Adages in English (or the Saxon Toung), Italian, French and Spanish (1659) as a
bona fide English proverb: “Early to bed, and early to rise, / Makes a man
healthy, wealthy and wise.” And according to Robert Newcomb’s careful
analysis of Benjamin Franklin’s sources for the proverbs in his Poor Richard’s
Almanacks, this American friend of old proverbs excerpted about 150
proverbs from Howell’s collection and integrated them into his almanacs that
appeared between 1733 and 1742. In fact, “for the Almanack of 1735, 1736
and 1737 Franklin relied almost exclusively on Howell,” and he clearly found
this proverb there—a fact that does not, of course, preclude the possibility
that Franklin knew the proverb from oral tradition as well.
Be that as it may, Franklin’s first use of the proverb in his Poor Richard’s Almanack for the year 1735 might by itself not have been able to attach his
name so lastingly to it. The credit for accomplishing this feat belongs more
appropriately to Franklin’s stroke of genius in preparing the manuscript of
Poor Richard’s Almanack for 1758 in the summer of 1757. For its introduction Franklin composed his famous essay “The Way to Wealth” which could
be considered as the manifesto of Puritan ethics based on 105 proverbs that
he excerpted from the previous 24 almanacs. Towards the beginning of this
didactic and pragmatic rhetorical masterpiece, Franklin talks about the value
of time and industry and concludes his ethical paragraph very appropriately
with the proverb that instructs people to adhere to solid work ethics:
If Time be of all Things the most precious, wasting Time must be, as
Poor Richard says, the greatest Prodigality, since, as he elsewhere tells
us, Lost Time is never found again; and what we call Time enough, al-
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ways proves little enough: Let us then up and be doing, and doing to
the Purpose; so by Diligence shall we do more with less Perplexity. Sloth
makes all Things difficult, but Industry all easy, as Poor Richard says;
and He that riseth late, must trot all Day, and shall scarce overtake his
Business at Night. While Laziness travels so slowly, that Poverty soon
overtakes him, as we read in Poor Richard, who adds, Drive thy Business, let not that drive thee; and Early to Bed, and early to rise, makes a
Man healthy, wealthy and wise.
Proverb follows proverb instructing the average Colonial American that industry and frugality will eventually lead to economic and personal independence. There is no doubt that this “proverb essay” became a sort of “national
orthodoxy” whose proverbs were cited ad infinitum if not ad nauseam at
every conceivable opportunity.
The fact that the proverb was indeed well known towards the end of the
eighteenth century can be seen from a diary entry from January 9, 1782, by a
loyalist contemporary of Benjamin Franklin, in which Samuel Curwen cites
part of the proverb not so much in its economic but rather medical sense:
Doctor Jeffries called and gave me his opinion, that considering my advanced age and past state of body, I should use warming and best dry
wines. Choicest flesh, roast, baked or boiled only, without butter fat or
sauces, of vegetables, turnips, carrots, onions, potatoes and no other.
Tea very sparingly, not to suffer stomach to be a long time empty, nor
to go to bed on a full one. Early to bed, early to rise, moderate exercise.
The good doctor realized that the proverb “Early to bed, early to rise, makes
a man healthy, wealthy and wise” is clearly sound advice from a medical point
of view, telling people that they need a proper amount of sleep. Whether that
will also translate into wealth and wisdom is not necessarily a solid guarantee.
In any case, the paragraph cited reads almost like a statement out of a popular magazine article on diet and exercise, and it is quite conceivable that the
proverb variation “Early to bed, early to rise, moderate exercise” might reappear any day as a ready-made slogan for yet another health program.
But the proverb contains much more than commonsense medical advice.
Its main purpose is doubtlessly to get people, especially children, to adhere to
rigid work ethics, as can be seen from the first stanza of Eliza Cook’s didactic
poem “Early to Bed and Early to Rise” (1868):
“Early to bed and early to rise.”
Ay! note it down in your brain,
Contexts
175
For it helpeth to make the foolish wise,
And uproots the weeds of pain.
This almost pious interpretation of a proverb preaching rigorous Protestant
ethics deserves to be contrasted with a more liberal view. Benjamin Franklin and
his proverbial wisdom had reached such heights of adoration and adherence that
Mark Twain saw fit to react humorously and ironically to it several times during
his life. In a sketch on “Early Rising” (1864), Twain takes Benjamin Franklin
and “his” proverb to task in a wonderfully humorous way. Following the proverbial motto with Benjamin Franklin’s name attached to it, Twain writes:
I have tried getting up early, and I have tried getting up late—and the
latter agrees with me best. As for a man’s growing any wiser, or any
richer, or nay healthier, by getting up early, I know it is not so; because
I have got up early [ . . . ] many and many a time, and got poorer and
poorer [ . . . ] instead of richer and richer [ . . . ] and so far from my growing healthier on account of it, I got to looking blue, and pulpy, and
swelled, like a drowned man. And as far as becoming wiser is concerned,
you might put all the wisdom I acquired in these experiments in your
eye, without obstructing your vision any to speak of.
About 1870 Mark Twain dealt once again with this “objectionable” proverb
in a short essay with the ironic title “The Late Benjamin Franklin.” Here he
attacks Franklin for having “prostituted his talents to the invention of maxims and aphorisms calculated to inflict suffering upon the rising generation of
all subsequent ages.” Remembering his own childhood and how his father,
and probably most parents, quoted “Poor Richard’s” proverbs ad nauseam,
Twain makes the following humorous yet telling remarks:
Nowadays a boy cannot follow out a single natural instinct without
tumbling over some of those everlasting aphorisms [i.e., proverbs] and
hearing from Franklin on the spot. [ . . . ] And that boy is hounded to
death and robbed of his natural rest, because Franklin said once, in one
of his inspired flights of malignity:
Early to bed and early to rise
Makes a man healthy and wealthy and wise.
As if it were any object to a boy to be healthy and wealthy and wise on
such terms. The sorrow that that maxim has cost me, through my parents,
experimenting on me with it, tongue cannot tell. The legitimate result is
my present state of general debility, indigence, and mental aberration.
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Twain makes plain here that proverbs can indeed have their negative side if
they are applied as universal rules in an excessive fashion. Even a health
proverb can lead to illness if adhered to too strictly. The proverb “Moderation
in all things” obviously also applies to the use of proverbs.
Mark Twain would certainly have agreed completely with some of the following irreverent reinterpretations of master Franklin’s proverb. The most
famous one-liner parodies of the proverb are George Ade’s “Early to bed and
early to rise and you won’t meet many prominent people” and “Early to bed
and early to rise / Will make you miss all the regular guys” from around
1900. The basic idea of Ade’s proverb parody, or anti-proverb, is marvelously
present in Groucho Marx’s autobiography Groucho and Me (1959) some 50
years later:
Take, for example, “Early to bed, early to rise, makes a you-knowwhat.” This is a lot of hoopla. Most wealthy people I know like to sleep
late. You don’t see Marilyn Monroe getting up at six in the morning. I’m
sure if you had your choice, you would rather watch Miss Monroe rise
at three in the afternoon than watch the most efficient garbage collector
in your town hop out of bed at six.
To this might be added the parodying moral of one of James Thurber’s modern anti-fables from 1939: “Moral: Early to rise and early to bed makes a male
healthy and wealthy and dead.”
Two other texts commenting on the time change that takes place twice a
year echo this obvious dislike of going to bed early and rising at an early hour.
Robertson Davies wrote the following remarks concerning the Daylight Saving Time in his Diary of Samuel Marchbanks (1947):
At the back of the Daylight Savings scheme I detect the boney, bluefingered hand of Puritanism, eager to push people into bed earlier, and
get them up earlier, to make them healthy, wealthy and wise in spite of
themselves.
This concern over time changes is still an issue today, as can be seen from an
article in the Burlington Free Press from January 5, 1974, with the appropriate
headline “Early-bird Vermonters To Rise In Darkness as DST Resumes”:
Nobody was more serious about DST than Ben Franklin back in 1784
as U.S. ambassador to France [ . . . ]. His solution: a daily sunrise serenade of clanging church bells and booming cannons to “wake the slug-
Contexts
177
gards and make them open their eyes.” The French managed to survive
without adopting Franklin’s early-to-bed, early-to-rise advice.
Such statements in newspapers and magazines do their share in keeping
Franklin’s name attached to the proverb, as can also be seen from Robert L.
Fish’s mystery novel Rub-a-dub-dub (1971), where a character states: “I’m
afraid that after dinner I’m scarcely at my best. Getting on, you know. Early
to bed and early to rise, has some salubrious effect on a man, if I recall my
Franklin correctly.”
Mere proverb allusions run the risk of not being understood, even if they refer
to very common proverbs. Nevertheless, such lack of communication is rather
rare among native speakers, especially if the name of Franklin is mentioned as
well. A headline in the renowned Wall Street Journal of March 20, 1987, proves
that Franklin’s apocryphal proverb is as true for today’s business executives as it
was 250 years ago when Franklin preached its wisdom to his contemporaries for
their economic well-being: “Early to Bed...The motto of Ben Franklin has become the M.O. [i.e., modus operandi] of many a chief executive.”
In this respect it is of interest that the business world already in 1898 created the following slogan from the proverb to encourage merchants to advertise their products:
TO SUCCEED
Early to bed, early to rise,
Never get tight, and—advertise.
This advertising slogan was also recorded a few years later as “Early to bed and
early to rise / Is no good unless you advertise.” Decades later, on June 17,
1991, the magazine Money and the cereal producer General Mills joined
forces in an advertising page that included the large headline “Healthy,
wealthy and wise.” Eating whole grain Total cereal and reading Money magazine will obviously make you healthy and wealthy, and you will also gain in
wisdom about food and prosperity. That at least must have been the thoughts
of the advertisers when they put this particular advertisement together. The
modern world would, of course, not argue that advertising is the only way to
have success in business. It would also push the computer on people, since it
facilitates accounting procedures. One might even argue that today’s work
ethic is best expressed in the way a father lectures his son in a Punch cartoon
from 1989: “Remember this: early to bed, early to rise, work like hell and
computerise [sic].” The modern term “computerise” does not only end with
the same sound as the old “wise,” thus clearly indicating that this is an effec-
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Proverbs
Cited from Punch (January 13, 1989), p. 15. Reproduced with permission of Punch Ltd.
tive adaptation of the traditional proverb, it also equates the technological
computer with wisdom. One only wonders what will become of the important aspect of health in a world of stress and competition! In any case, imagine to be awakened in the morning by the chambermaid exclaiming “Early to
bed and early to rise—or the boss’ll promote the other guys . . . ,” which was
the caption of a 1959 cartoon in The Boston Herald.
The frequent quotation of this proverb has led people to react with humor
or satire to its solid-work-ethics ideal, and these proverb parodies, or antiproverbs, clearly express some sort of wisdom as well:
1935
1942
Early to bed, early to rise
And your girl goes out with the other guys.
Late to bed, late to rise,
who in the hell wants to be wise?
Contexts
1965
1967
1976
1980
179
Early to bed, early to rise:
dull isn’t it?
Late to bed and early to rise,
—and your head will feel five times its size.
Early to bed and early to rise
makes sure you get out before her husband arrives.
If you’re not interested in being healthy, wealthy, and wise—how about
early to bed?
Some of these parodies, including the last one, which served as a suggestive
birthday card message, are clearly sexual and at times chauvinistic. Considering
the linguistic awareness to sexism in everyday language, it should not be surprising that there is some objection to the gender-specific noun “man” in the
traditional proverb. Women have reacted to the male dominance and the misogyny in proverbs in recent years, but it might come as a pleasant surprise to
find the “man” replaced by “woman” as early as 1880 in a short humorous verse:
Early to bed and early to rise
Makes woman healthy, wealthy, and wise.
From 1969 stems the variant “Early to bed, early to rise, makes a girl healthy,
wealthy and wise,” yet the term “girl” is not at all acceptable to feminists at
the present time. The way to go is without doubt to cite the old proverb as
“Early to bed and early to rise, makes you healthy, wealthy and wise,” as
Stephen Vizinczey did in his book In Praise of Older Women (1965). Another
gender-free possibility would be to replace “man” with “person,” as it was
recorded from an informant in 1986 in California: “Early to bed, early to rise,
makes a person healthy, wealthy, and wise.”
The fact that such parodies in the form of anti-proverbs exist at all is ample
proof that the traditional proverb is still very much present and valid. A wonderful example of how people to this day are surrounded by this proverbial
wisdom can be seen from a Häger comic strip from 1985 that presents a
number of proverbs that argue for getting up early and then creates a new text
in order to avoid rising that early: “‘Up and at ’em, Tiger’—‘The early bird
gets the worm’—‘Up sluggard, and waste not life’—‘Early to bed and early to
rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise’—‘He who gets up early is a
blooming fool’—‘I knew if I tried long enough I’d find one I liked’.” That last
self-rationalizing invented pseudo-proverb won’t do the “trick” unfortunately—everybody confronted by this comic strip knows that. There is not
much or at least only a temporary chance of escaping the inevitability of
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Proverbs
proverbs. It is one thing to poke fun at proverbs, to parody them or to argue
against them with biting satire, but a complete escape from or utter denunciation of the age-old wisdom expressed in them is simply not possible. Benjamin Franklin knew this only too well when he drew on the traditional
proverb stock of the English language to instruct his colonial Americans with
their wisdom in his many volumes of Poor Richard’s Almanack. He invented
or coined barely any proverbs, but he popularized them to such an extent that
some of them, notably the proverb “Early to bed and early to rise, makes a
man healthy, wealthy and wise,” came to be attached to his name especially in
the mind of Americans. Yet even this apocryphal identification of the proverb
with Benjamin Franklin is starting to be forgotten as the general level of cultural literacy appears to be declining, and the proverb is once again becoming
a piece of true folk wisdom that is attached to no individual person. Benjamin
Franklin as “coiner” of the proverb was thus but a mere interlude in the history of this proverb about health, wealth, and wisdom. It was, therefore, quite
appropriate that a traditional embroidery sampler of the proverb from 1977
did not attach the name of Benjamin Franklin to it but rather let the proverb
speak for itself with proper anonymity:
Early to Bed,
Early to Rise,
Makes a Man
Healthy, Wealthy
and Wise.
“BEHIND THE CLOUD THE SUN IS SHINING”: ABRAHAM
LINCOLN’S PROVERBIAL FIGHT AGAINST SLAVERY
It is well known that Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865), like Harry S. Truman in the twentieth century, never went to college. In fact, by his own admission, he probably had little more than one year of formal schooling
altogether. But he learned the basics and then developed his keen mind on his
own. He became an avid reader of virtually all the printed matter he could lay
his hands on. In addition to newspapers and magazines, he read, studied, and
memorized Shakespeare (notably parts of Macbeth, Hamlet, and King Lear),
he was acquainted with authors such as Robert Burns, Byron, Daniel Defoe,
Oliver Wendell Holmes, and James Russell Lowell, and he became extremely
well-versed in the Bible. His active life as a lawyer and politician prevented
him from reading extensively for pleasure. His time was taken up by informing himself of the news of the day as well as with reports of all types, and if
Contexts
181
there was time for reading, Lincoln would usually stick to Shakespeare or the
Bible. But this was reading not so much for pleasure as for comparing his own
thoughts, problems, and challenges with those of previous ages and for finding moral and ethical values to face his own time.
For someone who “adopted at several stages of his career the practice of
daily Bible reading,” it became natural to cite quotations or at least paraphrased verses from the Bible with high frequency in oral as well as written
statements. Lincoln scholars have not failed to comment on this preoccupation with biblical phrases, claiming that “his familiarity with and use of Biblical phraseology was remarkable even in a time when such use was more
common than now.” But what they have forgotten to comment about are
precisely the numerous biblical phrases that long ago turned into folk
proverbs and metaphors (see Mieder 2000b: 171–203). These proverbial utterances gave Lincoln the opportunity to speak and write both authoritatively
and somewhat colloquially, adding much imagery and color to his arguments
of persuasion in speeches and letters.
This preoccupation with biblical phraseology can take on rather overpowering proportions, as in his written reply of May 30, 1864, to a delegation of
Baptists:
I can only thank you for adding to the effective and almost unanimous
support which the Christian communities are so zealously giving to the
country, and to liberty. Indeed it is difficult to conceive how it could be
otherwise with any one professing christianity, or even having ordinary
perceptions of right and wrong. To read the Bible, as the word of God
himself, that “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread” [Gen. 3:19],
and to preach there from that, “In the sweat of other mans [sic] faces shalt
thou eat bread,” to my mind can scarcely be reconciled with honest sincerity. When brought to my final reckoning, may I have to answer for
robbing no man of his goods; yet more tolerable even this, than for robbing one of himself, and all that was his. When, a year or two ago, those
professedly holy men of the South, met in the semblance of prayer and
devotion, and, in the Name of Him who said “As ye would all men
should do unto you, do ye even so unto them” [Matt. 7:12] appeal to the
christian world to aid them in doing to a whole race of men, as they
would have no man do unto themselves, to my thinking they contemned
and insulted God and His church, far more than did Satan when he
tempted the Saviour with the Kingdoms of the earth. The devil’s attempt
was no more false, and far less hypocritical. But let me forbear, remembering it is also written “Judge not, lest ye be judged” [Matt. 7:1].
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Proverbs
What a paragraph! What a rhetorical masterpiece! Without even mentioning
that horrid word “slavery,” Lincoln employs three biblical proverbs known to
everybody, and certainly to the Baptist ministers, and ridicules countless
numbers of slaveholders of the South who have earned their bread through
the work of their slaves. He also points out proverbially that they have forgotten the “Golden Rule,” and by quoting its proverbial wording, he shows
vividly how false their behavior has been. But lest he were to elevate himself
to an exaggerated self-righteousness, Lincoln closes his mini-sermon with the
proverb that warns everybody against sitting in judgment over others and forgetting that all people commit sinful acts. The message is direct, clear, and authoritative, and the three biblical proverbs add a didactic and ethical
persuasiveness to this masterful statement.
An additional example of such proverbial rhetoric based on the Bible can
be found in Lincoln’s incredibly short (a mere two pages) “Second Inaugural
Address” of March 4, 1865. The president actually uses two of the previous
proverbs once again to make his point that slavery is wrong but that people
must be careful in their judgment of others. Lincoln in all of his condemnations of slavery is always ready and willing to find a way to bring North and
South back together and to save the Union. For him, all Americans deserve to
be treated alike:
Neither party expected for the war, the magnitude, or the duration,
which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the
conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease.
Each looked for an easier triumph, and as a result less fundamental and
astounding. Both read the Bible, and pray to the same God; and each
invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men
should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from
the sweat of other men’s faces; but let us judge not that we be not
judged. The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has
been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. [ . . . ] Fondly
do we hope—fervently do we pray—that this mighty scourge of war
may speedily pass away.
One further example may serve as an illustration of how much Lincoln’s
speeches and writings are permeated with biblical proverbs. The following
text is purposely chosen to show Lincoln from a more humorous side. After
all, stories and books abound on Lincoln as humorist and raconteur. It should
be noted, however, that none of them, not even those dealing with folklore
and Lincoln, comment on his rich stock of proverbs and proverbial expres-
Contexts
183
sions. In any case, the following story was written by Lincoln for one Noah
Brooks, who claimed that the president handed it to him with the comment:
“Here is one speech of mine which has never been printed, and I think it
worth printing. Just see what you think.” Lincoln even signed the little speech
and added the humorous title “The President’s Last, Shortest, and Best
Speech” to it. All of this probably took place on December 6, 1864, for on the
next day the Washington Daily Chronicle published it with that title, clearly
to the delight of all inhabitants in the capital:
The President’s Last, Shortest, and Best Speech
On thursday of last week two ladies from Tennessee came before the
President asking the release of their husbands held as prisoners of war at
Johnson’s Island. They were put off till friday, when they came again;
and were again put off to saturday. At each of the interviews one of the
ladies urged that her husband was a religious man. On saturday the
President ordered the release of the prisoners, and then said to this lady
“You say your husband is a religious man; tell him when you meet him,
that I say I am not much of a judge of religion, but that, in my opinion,
the religion that sets men to rebel and fight against the government, because, as they think, that government does not sufficiently help some
men to eat their bread on the sweat of other men’s faces, is not the sort
of religion upon which people can get to heaven!”
A. Lincoln.
Once again Lincoln has twisted the biblical proverb “In the sweat of thy face
shalt thou eat bread” to comment rather indirectly and with a good dose of
humor on slavery and thereby ridicule both the Southern soldier and his wife,
whose “religion” is based on false premises.
This little speech was by far and fortunately not Abraham Lincoln’s last
speech. Many more oral and written statements were to follow in which he
employed biblical proverbs galore. But how about Lincoln’s integration of traditional folk proverbs into his speeches and writings? These ready-made bits
of folk wisdom were there to serve him at any time to communicate effectively by appealing to common sense and generational authority. He certainly
integrated them on numerous occasions both in the most mundane messages
and in his very best speeches and proclamations.
And yet, this fact seems to escape scholars again and again. A good case in
point is the last paragraph in Lincoln’s famous Cooper Union speech given on
February 27, 1860, in New York City. In this speech Lincoln outlined in very
clear and logical terms his solid commitment to maintaining the Union and
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Proverbs
Postcard (ca. 1900), purchased at an antique shop in December 1977 at Detroit, Michigan.
to keeping slavery from spreading. As he moved towards the final two paragraphs of his speech, the president rose to an oratorical height that must have
moved his audience then just as it does readers today. One can sense here the
tension and anxiety in yet one more pitch to prevent the country from entering a devastating civil war:
Wrong as we think slavery is, we can yet afford to let it alone where it is,
because that much is due to the necessity arising from its actual presence in the nation; but can we, while our votes will prevent it, allow it
to spread into the National Territories, and to overrun us here in these
Free States? If our sense of duty forbids this, then let us stand by our
duty, fearlessly and effectively. Let us be diverted by none of those sophistical contrivances wherewith we are so industriously plied and belabored—contrivances such as groping for some middle ground between
the right and the wrong [ . . . ].
Contexts
185
Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against
us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the Government
nor of dungeons to ourselves. Let us have faith that right makes might,
and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.
In an otherwise superb essay on “Lincoln’s Development as a Writer,” Roy P.
Basler, one of the most knowledgeable Lincoln scholars, introduces his quotation of the last short paragraph of this speech with the observation that Lincoln’s
“peroration is one of his most effective and memorable conclusions.” But his
readers would want to know why this is the case. This is also true for the comments of two authors who state that these words are “a fitting climax to Lincoln’s
efforts. Rational principle develops into moral conviction, and the resulting
emotional intensity emerges from and synthesizes all that has gone before. Yet
the intensity is controlled. Speaker and audience are resolute and principled, but
at the same time, they are poised and logical.” What these authors have said is,
of course, true and correct, but might it not have helped for a better understanding of Lincoln’s rhetorical power to point out that by claiming that “Right
makes might” he is employing a proverb that dates back at least to the fourteenth
century? And, to be sure, its antipode “Might makes right” is just as old. Surely
it must be agreed by all interpreters of the very last sentence of this significant
speech that it is the wisdom of the proverb “Right makes might” that adds authority and conviction to Lincoln’s argument. It summarizes everything that he
had just argued about, namely that the preservation of the Union and the control of slavery are just and “right” goals. This being the case, people believing in
these principles will have the “might” to keep matters under control.
Lincoln definitely had a predilection to quote proverbs, as can be seen
from his fondness for the proverb “Broken eggs cannot be mended” in two of
his letters. On July 31, 1862, Lincoln wrote the following thoughts about the
political situation in Louisiana to August Belmont:
Broken eggs cannot be mended; but Louisiana has nothing to do now
but to take her place in the Union as it was, barring the already broken
eggs. The sooner she does so, the smaller will be the amount of that
which will be past mending. This government cannot much longer play
a game in which it stakes all, and its enemies stake nothing. Those enemies must understand that they cannot experiment for ten years trying
to destroy the government, and if they fail still come back into the
Union unhurt. If they expect in any contingency to ever have the Union
as it was, I join with the writer [Lincoln had been shown a letter calling
for action on his part] in saying, “Now is the time.”
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Proverbs
It must be noted that Lincoln does not merely cite the proverb, but he expands on it and makes it part of his entire rhetorical argument why Louisiana
must fish or cut bait. About half a year later, in a letter of January 8, 1863, to
Major General John A. McClernand, Lincoln picks up his message about
maintaining the Union and employs the proverb once again as a persuasive
metaphor:
I never did ask more, nor ever was willing to accept less, than for all the
States, and the people thereof, to take and hold their places, and their
rights, in the Union under the Constitution of the United States. For
this alone have I felt authorized to struggle; and I seek neither more nor
less now. Still, to use a coarse, but an expressive figure, broken eggs can
not be mended. I have issued the emancipation proclamation, and I can
not retract it.
This is indeed a powerful use of a proverb (strange that Lincoln does not call
it such), and it is by far not merely integrated at this place to add a bit of colorful folk language. This coarse or simple piece of wisdom becomes the ultimate point of the entire statement, namely that there is no way of retracting
his courageous, laudable, and absolutely humane emancipation of the slaves.
Of course, Lincoln did not win the war with his metaphors or proverbs,
but as in the case of that other great wartime orator and rhetorician Winston
S. Churchill, his metaphorical prowess helped to stir people into action.
Without doubt his use of proverbs gave his speeches, memoranda, proclamations, and letters a remarkable element of common sense and thus persuasive
ethical power. In order to underscore this claim, a few additional contextualized examples of actual proverbs in Lincoln’s published works will be presented. Here is a paragraph from the “Temperance Address” that Lincoln
delivered on February 22, 1842, at the Second Presbyterian Church in
Springfield, Illinois. It should be noted that while he first cites the proverb in
its usual wording, he then elaborates on it in most vivid terms to bring his
point across:
When the conduct of men is designed to be influenced, persuasion,
kind, unassuming persuasion, should ever be adopted. It is an old and a
true maxim, that a “drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of
gall.” So with men. If you would win a man to your cause, first convince
him that you are his sincere friend. Therein is a drop of honey that
catches his heart, which, say what you will, is the great high road to his
reason, and which, when once gained, you will find but little trouble in
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convincing his judgment of the justice of your cause, if indeed that
cause really be a just one. On the contrary, assume to dictate to his judgment, or to command his action, or to mark him as one to be shunned
and despised, and he will retreat within himself, close all the avenues to
his head and his heart; and do tho’ your cause be naked truth itself,
transformed to the heaviest lance, harder than steel, and sharper than
steel can be made, and tho’ you throw it with more than Herculean
force and precision, you shall no more be able to pierce him, than to
penetrate the hard shell of a tortoise with a rye straw.
This is indeed a fine example of his use of metaphor and imagery, but the fact
that he starts the paragraph with “an old and a true maxim” (i.e., a proverb)
gives his explanations and arguments that power of proverbial persuasion. It
is fascinating to observe here Lincoln’s skill in positive and ethical persuasion,
a rhetorical and moral approach that he used throughout his political life.
Lincoln can also give very straightforward advice by quoting a nonmetaphorical proverb, as is the case in his fragmentary “Notes for a Law Lecture” of July 1, 1850. Here he is very matter of fact in his explanations, and
not necessarily at the height of his oratorical abilities:
I am not an accomplished lawyer. I find quite as much material for a
lecture in those points wherein I have failed, as in those wherein I have
been moderately successful. The leading rule for the lawyer, as for the
man of every other calling, is diligence. Leave nothing for to-morrow,
which can be done to-day. Never let your correspondence fall behind.
Whatever piece of business you have in hand, before stopping, do all
the labor pertaining to it which then can be done.
Of special interest is, however, Lincoln’s metaphorical statement of October
4, 1854, in yet another speech at Springfield, where he tried to explain the
dangers of having slavery spill over into new areas. His figurative analysis appears to be a paraphrase of the proverb “The grass is always greener on the
other side of the fence”:
It is said that there are more slaves in that extreme north-west portion
of Missouri, jutting broadside against Kansas and Nebraska than in any
other equal area in Missouri! Will it not go, then, into Kansas and Nebraska, if permitted? Why not? What will hinder? Do cattle nibble a
pasture right up to a division fence, crop all close under the fence, and
even put their necks through and gather what they can reach, over the
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line, and still refuse to pass over into that next green pasture, even if the
fence shall be thrown down?
There is a great deal of irony in these questions, and Lincoln is indeed drawing on the colorful folk speech that he heard and learned as a young country
boy. But he is not alluding to the proverb mentioned above! I have shown in
a detailed study that the proverb “The grass is always greener on the other side
of the fence (pasture)” has its origin in an American song entitled The Grass
Is Always Greener (In the Other Fellow’s Yard), of which Raymond B. Egan
wrote the lyrics and Richard A. Whiting composed the music only in 1924
(Mieder 1993b)! Lincoln is then merely being figurative in his statement and
not yet proverbial. Thus are the pitfalls of proverb scholarship that is not
based on historical analyses of individual texts.
Proverbs also appear in some of his short letters, with Lincoln feeling bad
that he does not have the time to compose longer epistles: “You will readily
understand and appreciate why I write only very short letters,” he informs
Schuyler Colfax on May 31, 1860. But precisely to add at least some
poignancy to such letters and drive home a point in the shortest possible way,
Lincoln incorporates traditional proverbs without any other comment. In a
response to John M. Pomeroy of August 31, 1860, regarding regional quarrels among some Pennsylvania Republicans, Lincoln simply states: “I am slow
to listen to criminations among friends, and never expouse [sic] their quarrels
on either side. My sincere wish is that both sides will allow by-gones to be bygones, and look to the present & future only.” Lincoln was also quite capable
of giving the shortest possible oral remarks rather than speeches that could
last more than three hours! For example, when he left Springfield on February 11, 1861, on his way to Washington to assume the presidency, he also
stopped at Tolono, Illinois, on the way, and here is what this humble and
clearly moved man had to say:
I am leaving you on an errand of national importance, attended, as you
are aware, with considerable difficulties. Let us believe, as some poet has
expressed it: “Behind the cloud the sun is still shining.” I bid you an affectionate farewell.
Today he might have used the proverb “Every cloud has a silver lining,” but the
people who had come to the train to wish him well certainly knew the variant
“Behind the cloud(s) the sun is shining” and understood well what their new
president meant with this hopeful proverb in those bitter times. Short as this
impromptu statement might be, it is revealing about Lincoln’s character.
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There is no doubt that Lincoln was able to cut through a lot of verbiage
and red tape by employing proverbs in such short messages, in each case hitting the proverbial nail on the head, as it were. One last contextualized
proverb reference might serve as the conclusion to these comments. It is part
of a speech that President Lincoln gave on April 18, 1864, at the Sanitary Fair
in Baltimore, Maryland, almost exactly one year before his assassination. As
was to be expected, he commented on the war and slavery:
When the war began, three years ago, neither party, nor any man, expected it would last till now. Each looked for the end, in some way, long
ere to-day. Neither did any anticipate that domestic slavery would be
much affected by the war. But here we are; the war has not ended, and
slavery has been much affected—how much needs not now to be recounted. So true is it that man proposes, and God disposes. But we can
see the past, though we may not claim to have directed it; and seeing it,
in this case, we feel more hopeful and confident for the future.
Once again this tall and yet humble president stands in front of the people
and calmly tries to project a positive image for the future. He can indeed
claim some progress with the Emancipation Proclamation and the Civil War
perhaps nearing its end. But there is no celebration, and there is no hubris,
there is only humility and perhaps a shutter within Lincoln and the people
listening to him as everybody is wondering how all of this will finally come to
a conclusion. It is at this moment that Abraham Lincoln returns to his stock
of biblical proverbs, putting the fate of the nation into God’s hands, for “Man
proposes, and God disposes” (see Prov. 16:9).
“CONVENTIONAL PHRASES ARE A SORT OF FIREWORKS”:
CHARLES DICKENS’S PROVERBIAL LANGUAGE
The vast scholarship on Charles Dickens (1812–1870) has rather tangentially dealt with his rich proverbial language. While a few scholars have commented in passing on Dickens’s predilection for the use of metaphorical
language, George B. Bryan and I have finally presented a detailed study on
The Proverbial Charles Dickens: An Index to Proverbs in the Works of Charles
Dickens (1997) that registers and interprets the contextual function of the numerous proverbs, proverbial expressions, proverbial comparisons, and
wellerisms in his voluminous works. Dickens certainly used proverbial language in all of his writings, reflecting its general use in nineteenth-century
England among people of all social classes.
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It should be noted that Charles Dickens makes frequent use of proverbial
language in his numerous letters, which he described to his wife Catherine
Hogarth on November 9, 1835, as having “brevity and matter-of-fact
style.” But even in the shortest of them, he includes proverbs or proverbial
phrases at strategic locations in order to add some expressiveness and colloquial color to his often rather mundane epistles occupied with everyday
problems and frustrations. This becomes quite obvious in the following
short excerpts:
To Samuel Rogers, 14 November 1839:
Did you ever “move”? We have taken a house near the Regents Park, intending to occupy it between this [date of the letter] and Christmas,
and the consequent trials have already begun. There is an old proverb
that three removes are as bad as a fire. I don’t know how that may be,
but I know that one is worse.
To Mrs. Gore, 7 September 1852:
So you want a godchild. May I never have the opportunity of giving you
one! But if I have—if my cup (I mean my quiver) be not yet full—then
shall you hear again from the undersigned Camel that his back is broken by the addition of the last overbalancing straw.
Quite revealing are also those proverbial passages from Dickens’s letters, in
which the author comments on his busy life as a serial writer working under
extreme time pressure:
To Lady Kay-Shuttleworth, 4 July 1850:
But my work (which is particularly hard just now) obliges me to avoid
all public meetings, and almost all other interruptions of my attention,
except long country walks and fresh air. If I were to permit anything to
interfere with these relaxations just now, I fear the old spelling-book
would “come true”, and Jack would be but a dull boy.
There are also several very short letters in the form of a note of few lines that
employ a proverb or two in a didactic or humorous fashion. They indicate
how much Dickens liked to play with language and how freely he manipulated so-called fixed expressions. To him they were ready-made linguistic
wares that could be adapted in any way or shape that he saw fit:
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191
To Peter Cunningham, 12 September 1855:
We must put our shoulders to the wheel and come forward . . . throwing
ourselves into the tide, and a going with the stream.
To George Dolby, 28 September 1856:
I don’t care much for the weather and am off to the Foundling [Hospital], and (unless it should rain Tiger cats and Newfoundland dogs), to
Hampstead afterwards.
Such short epistolary notes are true gems by a master proverbialist, who never
tired of citing complete and traditional proverbs or of alluding to them in a
playful manner that added much humor and irony to his concise statements.
When one proverbial phrase is not enough, a second metaphor quickly comes
to mind, and it is this amassment of folk expressions that can also be observed
in his novels and speeches.
Turning next to how Dickens made use of proverbial rhetoric in his
speeches, it will become apparent that he expended quite a bit of rhetorical
energy in elaborating on proverbs. In a speech delivered on October 5, 1843,
in Manchester, Dickens argued convincingly for the support of schools and
education by disagreeing with the wisdom of a well-known proverb. This
splendidly innovative rhetorical procedure must have attracted the attention
of the audience:
How often have we heard from a large class of men wise in their generation, who would really seem to be born and bred for no other purpose
than to pass into currency counterfeit and mischievous scraps of wisdom, as it is the sole pursuit of some other criminals to utter base
coin—how often have we heard from them, as an all-convincing argument, that “a little learning is a dangerous thing”? Why, a little hanging
was considered a very dangerous thing, according to the same authorities, with this difference, that, because a little hanging was dangerous,
we had a great deal of it; and, because a little learning was dangerous, we
were to have none at all. Why, when I hear such cruel absurdities gravely
reiterated, I do sometimes begin to doubt whether the parrots of society
are not more pernicious to its interests than its birds of prey.
But what sounds as an enjoyable pun at the beginning of the speech is in fact
only the introduction to yet another plea for more interest in good schools.
Dickens, the social realist and reform-minded activist, does not do small talk,
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not even with proverbs. His speeches always have a goal and purpose in mind,
and their proverbial rhetoric is subservient to these social commitments.
In some of the essays that Charles Dickens wrote for his journal Household
Words, he continued his preoccupation with proverbs in a wonderfully humorous paragraph in the essay “First Fruits,” which Dickens published together with George Augustus Sala on May 15, 1852. While they translate the
French proverb, they also delight in alluding playfully to the proverb “A bird
in the hand is worth two in the bush”:
That it is “le premier pas qui coûte”—that the first step is the great
point—is as much a household word to us, and is as familiar to our
mouths as that the descent of Avernus is unaccompanied by difficulty,
or that one member of the feathered creation held in the hand is worth
two of the same species in the bush. And, if we might be permitted to
add to the first quoted morsel of proverbial philosophy a humble rider
of our own, we would say that we never forget the first step, the first ascent, the first stumble, the first fall.
Clearly Dickens wants his readers to notice that he is playing with “proverbial
philosophy,” and he insists rather often in his novels in particular on identifying proverbs as such by means of an introductory formula. Such emphasis
sets the proverbial utterance apart from the rest of the narration or dialogue,
making it a particularly noteworthy statement couched in metaphorical and
traditional language:
[ . . . ] for your popular rumour, unlike the rolling stone of the proverb,
is one which gathers a deal of moss in its wanderings up and down,
[ . . . ]. (The Old Curiosity Shop)
[ . . . ] others had been desperate from the beginning, and comforted
themselves with the homely proverb, that, being hanged at all, they
might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb. (Barnaby Rudge)
By drawing attention to the fact that he is using a proverb, Dickens thought
that he did not necessarily have to cite the proverb completely. He certainly
felt that he could break the rigid structure of the traditional proverb in order
to integrate it more effectively into his narrative flow. However, there are
many examples of proverbs cited in their entirety and without any introductory formulas. In this case the reader will usually have no difficulty in recognizing the traditional proverb as a piece of folk wisdom:
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193
“Where’s the good of putting things off? Strike while the iron’s hot;
that’s what I say.” (Barnaby Rudge)
“You and me know what we know, don’t we? Let sleeping dogs lie—who
wants to rouse ’em? I don’t.” (David Copperfield )
Quite often Charles Dickens cites proverbs in their traditional wording and
then adds a rather humorous comment to them. This practice undermines
the didactic aspect of the proverbs and serves as proof that Dickens knows
very well that the folk does not always use proverbs as a moral statement. The
mere fact that they are cited so often invites this type of ironic opposition to
their underlying wisdom, and it is to be assumed that Dickens’s readers enjoyed these rhetorical twists then and still do today:
“He will talk about business, and won’t give away his time for nothing.
He’s very right. Time is money, time is money.”
“He was one of us who made that saying. I should think,” said
Ralph. “Time is money, and very good money too, to those who reckon
interest by it. Time is money! Yes, and time costs money; it’s rather an
expensive article to some people we could name, or I forget my trade.”
(Nicholas Nickleby)
“Half a loaf ’s better than no bread, and the same remark holds good
with crumbs. There’s a few.” (Dombey and Son)
It should be noted at this place that there exists a folk tradition of adding humorous comments to proverbs and proverbial expressions in a typically triadic structural pattern, as for example in “‘Everyone to his own taste,’ as the
farmer said, when he kissed the cow” or “‘Like will to like,’ as the devil said to
the collier.” Normally these sayings consist of three parts: a statement (quite
often a proverb, proverbial expression, quotation, exclamation, etc.), a
speaker who makes the remark, and a phrase or clause that places the utterance in a new light or an incompatible setting. Charles Dickens made much
use of these traditional structures, and he placed many of them in the mouth
of his character Samuel Weller in The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club
(1837). In fact, scholars have decided to name these unique sayings
“wellerisms” in direct association with Sam Weller’s frequent use of them.
After Dickens had popularized such humorous, ironic, and satirical sayings as
elements of a literary work, there followed a wave of imitations both in Great
Britain and the United States. The wellerisms in the novels give Charles Dick-
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ens as social critic an opportunity to make ironic, detached, and entertaining
comments on sociopolitical issues and conflicts of the day:
“That’s the pint,” interposed Sam; “out vith it, as the father said to the
child, wen he swallowed a farden.” (Pickwick Papers)
“He wants you particklar; and no one else’ll do, as the Devil’s private
secretary said ven he fetched avay Doctor Faustus,” replied Mr. Weller.
(Pickwick Papers)
“Vell, sir,” rejoined Sam, after a short pause, “I think I see your drift;
and if I do see your drift, it’s my ‘pinion that you’re a comin’ it a great
deal too strong, as the mail-coachman said to the snow-storm, ven it
overtook him.” (Pickwick Papers)
It is exactly in his use of “language as play” that Sam Weller, a most prolific
employer of at times humorous, grotesque, and also macabre wellerisms, is
such a memorable character.
But there are also plenty of additional proverbs and proverbial expressions
in the Pickwick Papers, which has made this novel a special challenge for
translators. A particularly vexing problem would be the following paragraph
from that novel with its amassment of proverbs, proverbial expressions, and
idioms:
“Come along, then,” said he of the green coat, lugging Mr. Pickwick
after him by main force, and talking the whole way. “Here, No. 924,
take your fare, and take yourself off—respectable gentleman,—know
him well—none of your nonsense—this way, sir,—where’s your
friends?—all a mistake, I see—never mind—accidents will happen—
best regulated families—never say die—down upon your luck—pull
him up—put that in his pipe—like the flavour—damned rascals.” And
with a lengthened string of similar broken sentences, delivered with extraordinary volubility, the stranger led the way to the travellers’ waitingroom, whither he was closely followed by Mr. Pickwick and his
disciples. (Pickwick Papers)
Similar amassments can be found especially in those cases where Dickens
strings several proverbial comparisons together to create a vivid if not
grotesque imagery. His works are replete with comparisons and metaphors, of
which the following example might serve as a representative illustration:
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195
“He is uncommonly improving to look at, and I am not at all so. He is
as sweet as honey, and I am as dull as ditch-water. He provides the pitch,
and I handle it, and it sticks to me.” (Little Dorrit )
Of course, Dickens will also string two common proverbs together for a double didactic effect, as for example in the statement “‘My advice is, never do tomorrow what you can do to-day. Procrastination is the thief of time’” (David
Copperfield ).
Yet such direct citations of traditional proverbs are well balanced with
Dickens’s intentional variations of these fixed phrases. His purpose of employing proverbs is only at times didactic and moralistic. He actually seems to
prefer to play with the wording and the structure of standard proverbs, always
creating innovative variations and allusions, and thereby entertaining his
readers with his humorous or satirical puns. He is indeed a “liberated” proverbialist, who uses them with utmost linguistic freedom to add metaphorical
language to his own narrative and colorful spice to the language of his characters. Most readers will be able to recognize the underlying proverbs without
too much difficulty, and the juxtaposition of traditional proverb and authorial innovation results in a stylistic peculiarity that makes Dickens’s prose so
rich in metaphorical language. By overcoming the direct didacticism of many
proverbs, Dickens is able to communicate his social criticism and his desire to
improve the lot of his fellow citizens in a language that is not tiring in its social message but rather refreshingly colorful and often humorous. It is this
“proverbial realism” that makes some of the following passages so appealing to
readers of Dickens’s novels still today:
“Roving stones gather no moss, Joe,” said Gabriel.
“Nor mile-stones much,” replied Joe. “I’m little better than one here,
and see as much of the world.” (Barnaby Rudge)
I did not allow my resolution, with respect to the Parliamentary Debates, to cool. It was one of the irons I began to beat immediately, and
one of the irons I kept hot, and hammered at, with perseverance I may
honestly admire. (David Copperfield )
At times Dickens takes his game with proverbs a bit too far, and the modern
reader in particular might not be able to reconstruct the traditional saying alluded to in the passage. Note, for example, the beginning of Dickens’s letter
of September 23, 1854, to Thomas Beard: “Catherine is at last persuaded that
October really is the finest month in the year at the seaside—though she is
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Proverbs
Cited from Grace Frank and Dorothy Miner,
Proverbes en Rimes: Text and Illustrations of the
Fifteenth Century from a French Manuscript in
the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore. Baltimore,
MD: Johns Hopkins Press, 1937, plate 109.
Reprinted with permission of the Walters Art
Museum. Baltimore.
not yet quite converted to that other axiom concerning the salutary effects of
going to bed at 8 o’Clock.” It takes a considerable jolt of the “proverbial”
mind to realize that the axiom mentioned here alludes to the proverb “Early
to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.” In a second
“play” with this proverb, Dickens is a bit more obvious with his allusion, thus
enabling most of his readers to recall the traditional saying: “At length it became high time to remember the first clause of that great discovery made by
the ancient philosopher, for securing health, riches, and wisdom; the infallibility of which has been for generations verified by the enormous fortunes
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197
constantly amassed by chimney-sweepers and other persons who get up early
and go to bed betimes” (Martin Chuzzlewit). What a wonderfully ironic reaction to an early medical proverb dating back to 1496 which, under the
craftsmanship of Dickens, becomes a social criticism against the unfair distribution of wealth.
The final point in these remarks on Charles Dickens’s repeated use of
proverbial rhetoric relates to his often commented upon inclination towards
repetition in general. He attached certain “habitual phrases” to particular
characters, and such statements become “the ‘signature tune’ by which a character may be recognized.” As was explained earlier, in the case of Sam Weller,
these habitual phrases become a whole series of wellerisms. Since the Pickwick Papers appeared in installments, readers were literally waiting for the
wellerisms of the next issue. But Dickens can also delight in cramming a
proverbial expression repeatedly into one short paragraph. This last example
is a telling one and centers around the proverbial expression “To have a skeleton in the cupboard (closet)” in the meaning of a secret source of shame or
pain to a family or person. In the following passage, Dickens succeeds in personifying the proverbial phrase and has it partake as a third party in the marriage quarrel between Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Lammle. The repetitive use of the
“phrasal person” adds much to the humor of the situation and the authorial
wisdom expressed in this short dialogue at the breakfast table:
“It seems to me,” said Mrs. Lammle, “that you have had no money at all
ever since we have been married.”
“What seems to you,” said Mr. Lammle, “to have been the case, may
possibly have been the case. It doesn’t matter.”
Was it the specialty of Mr. and Mrs. Lammle, or does it ever obtain
with other loving couples? In these matrimonial dialogues they never
addressed each other, but always some invisible presence that appeared
to take station about midway between them. Perhaps the skeleton in the
cupboard comes out to be talked to, on such domestic occasions?
“I have never seen any money in the house,” said Mrs. Lammle to the
skeleton, “except my own annuity. That I swear.”
“You needn’t take the trouble of swearing,” said Mr. Lammle to the
skeleton; “once more, it doesn’t matter. You never turned your annuity
to so good an account.”
“Good an account! In what way?” asked Mrs. Lammle.
“In the way of getting credit, and living well,” said Mr. Lammle.
Perhaps the skeleton laughed scornfully on being intrusted with this
question and this answer; certainly Mrs. Lammle did, and Mr. Lammle did.
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Proverbs
“And what is to happen next?” asked Mrs. Lammle of the skeleton.
“Smash is to happen next,” said Mr. Lammle to the same authority.
After this, Mrs. Lammle looked disdainfully at the skeleton—but
without carrying the look on to Mr. Lammle—and drooped her eyes.
After that, Mr. Lammle did exactly the same thing, and drooped his
eyes. A servant then entering with toast, the skeleton retired into the
closet, and shut itself up. (Mutual Friend )
One thing is for certain though, Charles Dickens as the author of this passage
and of volumes of letters, essays, speeches, and novels (also a few plays and
poems) does not need to hide in a closet when it comes to judging his ability
to integrate proverbial language into his texts. He is doubtlessly a master
craftsman in the traditional and innovative use of proverbial rhetoric. For an
author with a commitment to the realistic depiction of social and political
problems of the nineteenth century, proverbs and proverbial expressions as
fixed phrases of human behavior had to enter his prose by necessity. These elements of folk speech do not only add metaphorical color to the prose but
rather they function as intrinsic parts of the entire meaning and message of
the novels. Charles Dickens knew this only too well, and in 1850, in the
middle of his remarkable career as one of the greatest British writers, he quite
appropriately stated that “conventional phrases are a sort of fireworks, easily
let off, and liable to take a great variety of shapes and colours not at all suggested by their original form” (David Copperfield ). These proverbial fireworks, as expressions of wit and wisdom, are indeed a major part of the
language and message of an author who cared deeply about the human comedy and tragedy of his time.
“MAKE HELL WHILE THE SUN SHINES”: PROVERBIAL
WAR RHETORIC OF WINSTON S. CHURCHILL
Systematic investigations of public figures of the twentieth century (or earlier times) are necessary to ascertain the permeating presence of proverbs in
political rhetoric. Speeches, essays, letters, diaries, memoranda, autobiographies, and so on need to be studied to gain a complete picture of the role that
folk speech plays in the verbal communication on the highest political level.
A unique person who fits this bill is without doubt Winston S. Churchill
(1874–1965), whose long life as a distinguished public servant has been
treated in perhaps more volumes than any other individual of the twentieth
century. Churchill’s stormy political career reached its summit when in 1940
he became prime minister and minister of defence, two pivotal posts that he
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199
held until 1945 and that enabled him to mobilize Britain and the rest of the
free world against the Fascist forces in Europe and Japan. For a period of five
years this man of words and deeds was indeed at the proverbial top of his political power and prominence, rallying the British people, those of the British
Empire, the United States, and numerous other nationalities to fight the
menace of Hitlerism.
Fortunately most of what Churchill uttered and wrote during those eventful five years of World War II has survived and has been published. Clearly, all
of these materials and more in the form of memoranda and notes were all
available to Churchill when he set out to write his celebrated six-volume personal and yet historical account of The Second World War (1948–1954). Manfred Weidhorn in a chapter on Churchill’s style entitled “An Affair of
Sentences” speaks of Churchill’s “comprehensive, flexible, and perceptive use
of imagery from the institutions of society and the disciplines of man—from
Scripture, marriage, commerce, science, medicine, sports, games, painting,
and, especially, the theater.” He also refers to the fact that “while some of his
metaphors and similes are predictable or pedestrian, others are effectively,
even pithily, used, adeptly moving [ . . . ] from the literal to the figurative.”
Next Weidhorn mentions that “Churchill enjoys racy colloquialisms no less
than formal Latinisms,” and he also refers to Churchill’s inclination towards
“epigrammatic statements.” Churchill himself was well aware of the importance of imagery, metaphor, pithiness, idiom, colloquialism, antithesis, and
epigram in his speaking and writing. At the age of 21 he wrote a revealing yet
never published short essay on “The Scaffolding of Rhetoric” (November 2,
1897), touching on the importance of correctness of diction, rhythm, accumulation of argument, and analogy in political oratory. Especially important
are his observations that “all the speeches of great English rhetoricians display
an uniform preference for short, homely words of common usage.”
The six volumes of The Second World War contain 410 proverbial texts on
a total of 4,405 pages, which yields a ratio of one proverbial phrase for every
10.7 pages. It might be interesting to note here, however, that Churchill’s
major enemy Adolf Hitler used about 500 proverbial phrases on a total of 792
pages of his Mein Kampf (My Struggle, 1925/26), making this aggressive,
polemic, and propagandistic bible of National Socialism and anti-Semitism
much more “proverbial” and by extension manipulatively authoritarian.
Where Churchill himself becomes more aggressive and emotional in his
speeches and writings, he appears to be more inclined to underscore his rhetoric with proverbial wisdom to strengthen his points and arguments. A short
proverb or fitting proverbial phrase enables him to hit the nail on the head, as
it were, also realizing very well that everybody would understand these
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proverbial colloquialisms when they were juxtaposed to the normal and factual rhetoric of organizing the war effort.
One senses a certain feeling of fatalism not only in many incidents in
which Churchill employs proverbial language but also throughout many of
these over four thousand pages of war history. Once the free democracies of
the world permitted Hitler to gain ultimate power, Churchill resigned himself to the fact that this foe had to be fought on his terms, that is, through the
resolve of the British people and the strongest military alliance that could possibly be assembled. There was no way to escape the fate of a major war, and a
number of proverbial leitmotifs underscore this determined viewpoint in
these volumes. The proverb that by its nature expresses the inescapable course
of events that would occur once all attempts at preventing it had been exhausted is the classical “The die is cast,” used by Julius Caesar on crossing the
Rubicon after coming from Gaul and advancing into Italy against Pompey
(49 B.C.). Churchill in a similar vein plunged himself into desperate and daring action when he accepted the position of prime minister during the Second World War. Being a man of action and deeds who worked best in crisis
situations, he made use of this fatalistic proverb 10 times in short and decisive
statements before the war. Two of them deserve closer scrutiny since they relate on the one hand to Churchill personally and on the other to one of the
most crucial decisions of World War II. In his letter of January 12, 1942, to
Lord Privy Seal one finds a contextualized reference showing Churchill’s
tribulations about flying home to Britain after meeting President Roosevelt in
Washington:
I must confess that I felt rather frightened. I thought of the ocean
spaces, and that we should never be within a thousand miles of land
until we approached the British Isles. I had always regarded an Atlantic
flight with awe. But the die was cast. Still I must admit that if at breakfast, or even before luncheon, they had come to me to report that the
weather had changed and we must go by sea I should have easily reconciled myself to a voyage by ship.
The second reference deals with the final decision as to the day the long
awaited invasion of mainland Europe to liberate France and other countries
and to give Hitler’s Germany its final blow would take place:
The hours dragged slowly by until, at 9:15 p.m. on the evening of June
4 [1944], a fateful conference opened at Eisenhower’s battle headquarters. Conditions were bad, typical of December rather than June, but
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the weather experts gave some promise of a temporary improvement on
the morning of the 6th. After this they predicted a return of rough
weather for an indefinite period. Faced with desperate alternatives of accepting the immediate risks or of postponing the attack for at least a
fortnight, General Eisenhower boldly chose to go ahead with the operation. At 4 a.m. on June 5 the die was irrevocably cast: the invasion
would be launched on June 6.
Churchill, who had proudly served as the first lord of the admiralty, very
much felt at home on the high seas, and it should not be surprising that he
enjoyed the rich proverbial metaphors of the English language that relate to
the sea and seafaring. Of particular interest is the use of a proverbial expression at a time of an earth-shaking historical event. In the chapter on “Pearl
Harbor,” Churchill reports that he received a telephone call from President
Roosevelt in which the latter stated that “‘They [the Japanese] have attacked
us at Pearl Harbor. We are all in the same boat now’.” Two days later, on December 9, 1941, Churchill began a letter to Roosevelt by repeating this maritime expression that so aptly expresses the fact that the United States and
Britain were now in the same position of fighting Japan and Germany:
Now that we are, as you say, “in the same boat”, would it not be wise for
us to have another conference? We could review the whole war plan in
the light of reality and new facts, as well as the problems of production
and distribution.
It is doubtful that either Roosevelt or Churchill knew that they were employing the classical Latin proverbial expression “in eadem es navi” (to be in the
same boat) that has been traced back to a letter by Cicero from 53 B.C. Yet in
the same boat they certainly were now, for just as Britain, “the United States
was in the war, up to the neck and in to the death,” as Churchill put it proverbially in the same letter.
Suffering and fighting were, of course, the driving forces behind Churchill’s
famous and by now proverbial statement made in a speech to the House of
Commons on May 13, 1940, his first after having become prime minister
three days earlier:
In this crisis I hope I may be pardoned if I do not address the House at
any length to-day. [ . . . ] I would say to the House, as I said to those who
have joined this Government: “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil,
tears and sweat.”
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Proverbs
With this statement Churchill electrified not only members of the House of
Commons but also the entire British nation and free peoples throughout the
world who heard it broadcast on the radio waves. The novelty of the famous
phrase, however, rests only in the fact that Churchill made a quadratic and
rhythmic structure out of the triad of “blood, sweat, and tears” which he
himself had used in The World Crisis (1931) to describe the valiant struggle
of the Russian armed forces during World War I: “These pages [ . . . ] record
the toils, perils, sufferings and passions of millions of men. Their sweat, their
tears, their blood bedewed the endless plain.” The order of the three nouns
is reversed here, but the preceding sentences mention the “toils” that were to
be added about nine years later. It must also be noted that the British author
John Donne already in 1611 speaks of “tears, or sweat, or blood,” and Lord
Byron in 1823 has the rhyming couplet “Year after year they voted cent per
cent, / Blood, sweat, and tear-wrung millions—why? for rent?” Churchill
might have known these earlier references, but there is also the chance that
he might have remembered the classical twin formula of “sanguis et sudor”
(blood and sweat) which was very popular with Cicero and many other
Latin authors. Be that as it may, there is no instance in classical Latin literature or anywhere else in English literature for that matter of the rhetorical
group of four nouns corresponding to the sweeping “blood, toil, tears, and
sweat.”
It happens rather frequently in Churchill’s narrative that he uses proverbial
language in a personal manner. It must not be forgotten that The Second
World War and his other historical volumes were not written in an objective
scholarly style. Churchill himself is the persona in the center, and sentences
with the “I” pronoun abound, including those that include folk speech:
I fear this may be another example of the adage “A stitch in time saves nine.”
I thought it my duty to break the ice.
I found it very hard to make head or tail of the bundle of drafts.
I am completely at the end of my tether.
I said we must face the facts.
“Facing the facts” was yet another proverbial leitmotif that Churchill used to
convince his allies and opponents to follow his war strategies. To add rhetorical strength to his verbal arguments, he would quite often shift from the subjective “I” to the more collective “we,” thus arguing for a united front. A few
convincing examples of this shrewd and at times manipulative procedure can
be seen in the following list:
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We will let bygones go and work with anyone who convinces us of his resolution
to defeat the common enemy.
We had to make the best of it, and that is never worth doing by halves.
Everything we had touched had turned to gold, and during the last seven weeks
there had been an unbroken run of military success.
The last reference refers to Churchill’s remarks during a meeting with President Roosevelt and numerous other high officials on September 13, 1944, at
Washington, D.C. Like Midas in the classical myth, the war efforts of the Allies were bearing gilded fruit if not turning literally to pure gold. Much of this
was due to the deep friendship and absolute trust between Churchill and
Roosevelt. Churchill once described the British and American relationship
during the entire war with the proverb: “A friend in need is a friend indeed.”
The feeling of gratitude led Churchill in a speech to the House of Commons on August 20, 1940, to formulate one of his most memorable utterances, which by now has taken on a proverbial status of sorts. Expressing his
appreciation of the British pilots who in the summer of 1940 fended off the
German air attacks, he said:
The gratitude of every home in our Island, in our Empire, and indeed
throughout the world, except in the abodes of the guilty, goes out to the
British airmen who, undaunted by odds, unwearied in their constant
challenge and mortal danger, are turning the tide of the World War by
their prowess and by their devotion. Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.
Churchill was well aware of the special and memorable formulation of this
phrase. In calling Churchill a “phrase forger,” Manfred Weidhorn is correct in
observing that Churchill “made his rhetoric memorable by these simple,
proverb-like utterances.”
Yet Churchill’s own inclination towards coining “proverb-like” phrases did
not prevent him from making use of traditional proverbs whenever they suited
his rhetorical purposes. If, on the other hand, a traditional proverb did not quite
express what the moment called for, Churchill had no problems in changing the
wording to fit his needs. At times such innovative proverb manipulations actually resulted in powerful statements the messages of which appear to carry the
authority of traditional wisdom. It should surprise no one that Churchill delighted in using the proverb “Deeds, not words” as a leitmotif 15 times throughout his long life. Not that words or rhetoric were not important to the great
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orator, but the following random citations from his speeches clearly show that
they were only a means to the more important end of precipitating action:
One of the ways to bring this war to a speedy end is to convince the enemy, not
by words, but by deeds, that we have the will. (1940)
In wartime there is a lot to be said for the motto: “Deeds, not words.” (1941)
We hope to be judged by deeds, and not by words, and by performance rather
than by promises. (1953)
One wonders, of course, what Churchill’s political opponents might have
thought of this last statement, when everybody in Britain knew about his love
of words. It must also not be forgotten that Churchill was a man of action,
that no assignment ever appeared too much for him, and that he worked untiringly for His Majesty’s Government and its people. As Victor Albjerg in his
chapter on “The Essence of the Man” has put it so aptly, “Churchill enjoyed
work. To him it was not drudgery, but purposeful creativity.”
In his countless memoranda to various ministers and generals, Churchill
again and again cited proverbs to support his arguments. They acted as folkloric
strategies to add emphasis to what would otherwise be rather bureaucratic messages. An example of this is his short memorandum of May 27, 1944, to the
Minister of Aircraft Production in which he expresses his perturbation about
the minister’s proposal “to centralise jet-propulsion development in [a] new
Government company. There is a great deal to be said for encouraging overlapping in research and development rather than putting all the eggs in one basket.” In another memorandum of November 16, 1944, Churchill informed
General Ismay of about twenty 18-inch howitzers that he could make available
to him for the direct attack of Germany: “Every dog has his day, and I have kept
these [very heavy guns] for a quarter of a century in the hope that they would
have their chance.” There appears to be no detail that escaped Churchill. One
gets the feeling that he thought of everything, as can be seen from yet another
memorandum of April 4, 1945, to Sir Edward Bridges. The war was not even
over yet, but Churchill as the shrewd politician and proponent of the British
Commonwealth was already planning to transfer some ships to Canada and
Australia as a goodwill gesture for their contributions to the war:
No financial considerations should be adduced. We owe too much to
Canada in money alone, and the effect of gestures like this upon both
Dominions concerned will be achieved far better than by arguments
about trading off the value of the ships against certain financial consider-
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205
ations. This is not a moment for a “penny-wise, pound-foolish” policy.
Now is the time to make the presentation in the most friendly form. Cast
your bread upon the waters; it will return to you in not so many days.
Notice how Churchill supplements the wisdom of the folk proverb in this situation with the authority of the biblical proverb (Eccles. 11:1), even though
he does not quite remember the original second part as “for you shall find it
after many days.” Or is he, in fact, altering the proverb on purpose in order
to indicate that this benevolent gesture will bear its fruit in return sooner than
people might think?
Churchill the masterful proverbial strategist can also be seen in the effective use of two proverbs in his reflection on the fateful signing of the NonAggression Pact between the Soviet Union and Germany on August 22,
1939. The proverbs serve as moralizing tools by Churchill, who had worked
hard to keep Stalin from siding with Hitler:
A moral may be drawn from all this, which is of homely simplicity.
“Honesty is the best policy.” Only twenty-two months were to pass before Stalin and the Russian nation and its scores of millions were to pay
a frightful forfeit. If a Government has no moral scruples, it often seems
to gain great advantages and liberties of action, but “All comes out even
at the end of the day, and all will come out yet more even when all the
days are ended.”
In addition to their moralizing purpose, the proverbs in the narrative of this
first volume of The Second World War also serve as prophetic statements of
“homely simplicity” that dishonesty and treachery will lead to doom.
Other proverbs show Churchill’s pragmatism in his dual role as prime
minister and minister of defence. In one of his typical memoranda, he raises
the question about much-needed war supplies and then gives a bit of pithy
advice that action should be taken immediately:
What is being done about getting our twenty motor torpedo-boats, the
one hundred and fifty to two hundred aircraft, and the two hundred
and fifty thousand rifles? I consider we were promised all the above, and
more too. Not an hour should be lost in raising these questions. “Beg
while the iron is hot.”
What an ingenious way to vary a standard proverb in order to express the definite need of getting these war supplies! Churchill clearly was a master of this
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Proverbs
Cited from John W. Barber, The Handbook of Illustrated
Proverbs. New York: George F. Tuttle, 1856, p. 135.
type of proverb manipulation, his best creation perhaps being the following
anti-proverb based on the well-known English proverb “Make hay while the
sun shines.” In a memorandum of June 23, 1941, to General Ismay,
Churchill wrote pointedly, “Now [that] the enemy [Germany] is busy in Russia is the time to ‘Make hell while the sun shines’” in gaining air domination
over the Channel and France. In its metaphorical simplicity this statement
can be seen as a proverbial modus operandi not only of warfare as Churchill
envisioned it but also of his political life in general. Take advantage of every
possible situation and give the enemy “hell” while you can.
Toward the end of his long life, the honorary citizenship of the United
States was bestowed upon Churchill on April 9, 1963. On that occasion President John F. Kennedy summarized Winston S. Churchill’s rhetorical
grandeur with the statement that “In the dark days and darker nights when
England stood alone—and most men save Englishmen despaired of England’s life—he mobilized the English language and sent it into battle.” It is
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doubtful that either Kennedy or Churchill thought of the importance that
proverbial speech played in this mobilization. Yet a good 20 years earlier, in a
long speech on the war situation to the House of Commons on January 27,
1942, Churchill had expressed his thoughts on the rhetorical significance of
proverbial folk speech:
There is no objection to anything being said in plain English, or even
plainer, and the Government will do their utmost to conform to any
standard which may be set in the course of the debate. But no one need
be mealy-mouthed in debate, and no one should be chicken-hearted in
voting.
Despite his erudition and vast knowledge that could lead Churchill to very sophisticated heights of the English language (he received the Nobel Prize for
Literature in 1953!), he was always ready “to speak in plain English” and to
voice his opinion without fear of the consequences. Speaking plainly and
proverbially certainly helped in arousing the peoples of the free world against
the tyranny of dictators. There definitely is proverbial truth in the claim that
Winston S. Churchill “mobilized the English language and sent it into battle.”
“MAN IS A WOLF TO MAN”: PROVERBIAL DIALECTICS
IN BERTOLT BRECHT
In January 1956, six months before his death, Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956)
spoke to the IVth German Writers Convention in Berlin about the construction of a new world, in which the socialist and realist style of writing had to
participate “through the study of material dialectic and the wisdom of the people.” Already in the late thirties he had pointed out in reference to his “nonAristotelian drama,” that “not everything that comes from the people and goes
to the people [is] popular. Those are truisms, but there are also falsisms, which
cannot be opposed.” This seemingly simple remark by Brecht is also applicable to proverbial folk wisdom that is particularly marked by contradictions.
After all, it is well known that an anti-proverb can be found for every proverb,
because this type of wisdom only stems from experience and does not contain
a logical system. As early as 1920 Brecht declared in his notebooks his “enjoyment of dialectics,” and in his essay “Looking At My First Plays” (1954) he
refers to his general “spirit of opposition.” Brecht characterized his contradictory work style proverbially by saying that “it was not just [ . . . ] ‘swimming
against the stream’ from a formal perspective [ . . . ], but also always the attempt
to show interaction between people as contradictory, tumultuous, violent.”
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With another proverbial statement Brecht reduces all this to a common denominator in his play Caucasian Chalk Circle (1945): “It may be wrong to mix
different wines, but old and new wisdom blend very well.”
Brecht’s preoccupation with proverbial language begins at the age of 15,
when he uses his first proverb in a letter written in verse to the Reitter family
in July of 1913, which exemplifies his linguistically playful humor:
We really did find an apartment right away
Mama did not like it all THAT much
but we could not get any other.
But when in need, even if that is too bad,
beggars can’t be choosers.
About 20 years later, Brecht combines in another letter of January 1934 to
Kurt Kläber as many as three proverbs into an innovative statement. Reacting
to news that friends from Germany would follow him into Danish exile, he
writes with linguistic playfulness and yet meaningfully: “Help yourselves, pioneers, still the best pastures are here for the taking, gold mines lie directly
underground, the land awaits your initiative. He who comes first, grinds terribly small and the dogs devour the hindermost.” The first part of the proverbial statement combines the first half of the proverb “First come, first served”
with the second part of the proverb “The mills of God grind slowly, yet they
grind exceedingly small,” and the word “exceedingly” has been replaced by
“terribly.” In the additional proverb “The dogs bite the hindermost” the
change of verb to “devour” considerably coarsens the metaphorical implications. Taking into account Hitler’s takeover of power and Brecht’s flight into
exile, this manipulation of proverbs can be interpreted as Brecht’s warning for
the friends of the lurking danger in Nazi Germany. Only too quickly does
such language play turn serious, as is also evident in the proverbial alienations
of his literary works.
In spite of their literal or alluded citing, proverbs in Brecht’s works are constantly subject to change, so that interesting parallel contradictions can be observed in the oeuvre. In The Caucasian Chalk Circle, for example, Azdak asks
a doctor whether he can name a mitigating cause for his crime. The doctor
replies: “At the most that to err is human.” In the fragment Downfall of the
Egoist Johann Fatzer (1930), the chorus changes the proverb considerably:
Injustice is human,
but more human it is
to fight against it!
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But even here, spare
man, leave him unharmed.
The dead cannot be
taught!
Repeatedly Brecht deals with proverbs by adding aphoristically to them. In
the short play He Who Said No (1930), intended for schoolchildren, a boy reacts to the proverb “Whoever says ‘a’, must also say ‘b’” by adding a contradiction: “Whoever says ‘a’, doesn’t have to say ‘b’. You can also recognize that
‘a’ was wrong.” At the same time Brecht uses the identical proverb in its original meaning in an essay “On the Necessity of Art in Our Time” (1930) to
argue that the price of art cannot keep rising while children go hungry all over
the world: “Art should not be regarded as the ‘expression of great and unique
personalities in the sense of exceptional manifestations.’ In that case, we have
said ‘A’ and must then say ‘B’. Then exceptional personalities dictate their
prices to the world, prices so high that there can be no more thought of feeding numerous insignificant children.” Here it becomes obvious that Brecht
knew how to make use of the multiple functionality of proverbs, although it
has to be said that alienation and literal quotation do not have to be a contradiction.
In the play Life of Galileo (1939), the metaphorical proverb “No rose without a thorn” is rephrased by way of a structurally identical addition to comment on Galileo’s realistic conflict: “What good would it do to have as much
free time for research as you like, if any uneducated monk of the inquisition
could simply forbid your thoughts? No rose without a thorn, no nobleman
without a monk, Master Galileo.” However, it should be pointed out that
such additions are also not uncommon in colloquial language, as for example
in “No rose without a thorn, no love without a competitor.” Such double expressions, of course, show Brecht’s interest in contradictory phrases. The following two instances illuminate this interest further: “It is bitter that children
turn into people, but still bitterer that people can turn into children!” and
“There is not much knowledge that provides power, but there is a lot of
knowledge that is provided by power.” Beginning with a proverb, Brecht in
each case forms an opposing expression which lets a bit of folk wisdom appear
in a completely different light.
It is often enough to change one single word to give a proverb an entirely
new meaning. The following examples can be understood without context,
but it must be remembered that alienations may well be intended as humor
or joke. Not every alienation is necessarily designed to uncover social wrongs
dialectically, although bitter satire often plays a part: “War [Christmas] comes
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Proverbs
but once a year,” “Sweaty feet [misfortunes] never come singly,” “Laziness
[idleness] is the root of all evil,” “Diligence is the mother of knockout [good
luck],” and “Hunger is a bad [the best] sauce.”
Brecht, as a Marxist, of course also presents the reversal of the proverb
“Money doesn’t stink” into “Money stinks,” but that is only uttered by Puntila in a drunken stupor in the play Mr. Puntila and His Man Matti (1940).
The strongest statement by Brecht against profiteering capitalism and in favor
of the poor can be found in the four-line epigram “Ach, des Armen Morgenstund (O, the Poor Man’s Morning Hour)” (1932). In this context, he varies
what has been proven to be the most popular German proverb “Morgenstunde
hat Gold im Munde” (the closest English equivalent would be “The early
bird catches the worm”) and adds as a doubled accusation an alienation of the
biblical proverb “He that will not work shall not eat” (2 Thess. 3:10):
O, the poor man’s morning hour
gold for the rich man has in its mouth
One thing almost I had forgotten:
He who works shall not eat, either.
Almost 20 years later, Brecht returns to the morning hour variation in his
fragment The Salzburg Dance of Death (1950). The short bridge-building
scene starts with a conversation between three carpenters and Death who appears as a foreman:
Death:
First Carpenter:
Death:
First Carpenter:
Death:
Up with the beam, get moving, you!
It’s heavy enough for three, foreman!
Time is money, move, move!
Not for us, dear man.
No jokes! Do it with a little singing
and you’ll succeed before you know it!
First Carpenter (sings): O, the poor man’s morning hour, heave-ho!
gold for the rich man has in its mouth, heave-ho!
Death: Men, such songs give me a tear,
they are an annoyance to me.
Here again the topic is exploitation, and the pecuniary proverb “Time is
money” acts as an additional verbal whip.
Occasionally, Brecht goes so far in his alienations that the original proverb
can only be recognized with difficulty. Surely the following statement is
rooted in the proverb “The unexpected always happens,” and it even gives a
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reasonable explanation for this bit of folk wisdom: “To be sure: Unexpected /
often comes expectedly, often we expect / something unexpected, that’s life.”
But for the most part, things aren’t as complicated as that, as is pointed out in
Brecht’s adaptation of Molière’s Don Juan (1953). There, Don Juan’s servant
Sganarelle resorts to six proverbs to argue ironically against his master’s
ridiculous death wish. He and Brecht succeed mainly through the purposeful
parody of folk wisdom: “And honesty is the worst policy and lies have long
legs and he laughs best who laughs first and last come, first served, and rotten
fish, good fish, and forgive us our innocence and the camel goes through the
eye of the needle” (Matt. 19:24). This alienated proverbial tirade shows with
great clarity how much “proverbial humor” Brecht employed in his proverbial
dialectics.
Often, proverbs are directly taken from the Bible, but their wisdom and
applicability in modern times is questioned. In the Conversations Among Exiles (1941) there is the following comment about Hitler’s war plans: “To retaliate, the enemy will also throw its population into our territory, because
war stands and falls with the phrase ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth’
[Exod. 21:24; Matt. 5:38]. One thing is for sure: if the total war is not supposed to remain an idea of the future, a solution has to be found. The question is simply: either the population is done away with, or war becomes
impossible. Sometime, and soon, a decision has to be made.” Justifiably,
Brecht argues against the proverb of retaliation from the Old Testament, particularly because he knew that this proverb was used for war propaganda and
the persecution of the Jews. A horrifying example of such usage can be found
in Hitler’s speech of January 30, 1942, in which the biblical proverb “An eye
for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” is perverted into the colloquial justification
of the real elimination of the European Jews: “We are aware that the war can
only end in two ways: either, the Aryan people are exterminated or Judaism
disappears from Europe. [ . . . ], the result of this war [will] be the annihilation
of Judaism. For the first time, the real ancient Jewish law will be applied: Eye
for eye and tooth for tooth!”
The most drastic description of human misery, however, can be found in
the Threepenny Opera (1928) in the form of the alienated biblical proverb
“Man does not live by bread alone” (Deut. 8:3; Matt. 4:4), used in the second
finale with the title “What does man live by?” About six years later, Brecht
used the chorus of that song also as a motto for the third chapter of the Threepenny Novel (1934):
What does man live by? He lives by hourly
Tormenting, stripping, attacking, strangling and devouring others.
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Proverbs
Brattleboro [Vermont] Reformer (November
25, 1978), p. 13.
Man only lives by thoroughly forgetting
That indeed he is still human.
Chorus: Gentlemen, no more illusions:
Man lives by misdeed alone!
While the biblical proverb wants to express that people besides nutrition need
spiritual values to survive, this pessimistic anti-proverb claims that they are
primarily bad. And still, at the end of the great novel, Peachum, ever the businessman, expresses precisely the opposite in his speech to the newlywed couple Macheath and Polly, even if it is just with an eye on commercial success:
I would like to start with a practical suggestion. You, gentlemen, and
you, my dear son-in-law, sell razor blades and watches, and household
goods and who knows what else, but man does not live by that alone. It
is not enough that he is clean shaven and knows what time it is. You
have to go further. You have to sell him education, too. I mean books
and I am thinking of cheap novels which don’t paint life in shades of
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gray, but in lighter colors which give the everyday person an idea of
higher worlds [ . . . ]. I am not talking about the business opportunities
in this—which might be significant—, I am talking of the service offered to mankind.
But this speech to mankind is again full of ironies, because the mankind it
talks about and for which it pretends to look out can be bought. People here
are classified as consumers of goods and one is strongly reminded of one of
the songs in Mother Courage and Her Children (1939), where people turn into
commodities for the war machinery:
From Ulm to Metz, from Metz to Moravia!
Mother Courage is coming along!
War will provide for all
It only needs powder and lead.
It cannot live by lead alone,
nor by powder, It needs people!
In these lines Brecht plays with two proverbs. Hidden beneath the sentence
“War will provide for all” lies the proverb “The land provides for all,” and a
convincing contrast is established between the devastation of war and the harvesting of the land. Of course, the sentence “It [war] cannot live by lead
alone” contains another variation of the biblical proverb “Man does not live
by bread alone.” In this stanza, man turns into food for war, which means
that war devours people as its innocent victims. Clearly the alienating language play turns deadly serious in this case.
And so in the end one is left with the question about the purpose of life
and human existence. Does the moralist Brecht have an answer for that? Is it
even possible, in addition to the proverbial motto: “First comes the grub, then
morality” used but once in the Threepenny Opera, to find a specific proverb
that appears in the collected works and represents Brecht’s essential wisdom?
In the scale of life, which part of Brecht’s philosophy carries more weight—
the “grub” or morality, the animalistic or the human?
Hans Mayer has tried to find an answer to this question in a 1964 lecture
with the provocative title “Brecht and Humanity.” In the introduction he
says: “Brecht and humanity: a questionable combination. How can this author who, throughout his work, and perhaps most notably in the parable play
about the Good Person of Szechwan, has derided any sayings about humanity
and the general condition of man, be mentioned in connection with the
problem of humanity?” The answer is simply that Brecht, in spite of his deri-
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sion, is always writing about human fate. In his well-known “Playwright’s
Song” (1935) he says programmatically in the first stanza:
I am a playwright. I show
What I have seen. On the people-markets
I saw how people are traded. That
I show, I, the playwright.
In a variation of the proverb “Every man has his price” one finds the same
human theme as early as 1930 in the “Song of the Wares” that is part of the
didactic play The Measure Taken:
What, after all, is man?
Do I know what man is?
Do I know who knows it?
I don’t know what man is
I only know his price.
Resigning before the seemingly predestined invariability of the human condition, the early Brecht resorts to tautological proverbs such as “Human is
human” in Baal (1919) and “Man is man” in the “Man-is-man-Song” (1925)
as well as in the title of the comedy Man Equals Man (1926).
As was mentioned earlier, the proverbial alienation “Man lives by misdeed
alone” symbolizes human misery per se, in which man, as in the animal world,
struggles against others for the survival of the fittest. Helmut Koopmann has argued convincingly that “Brecht inevitably [resorted] to a counter-world: The
animal side of man—hence, not what distinguished man from animal, but
rather, what they had in common, only that one was aware of what the other
lived unconsciously.” Franz Norbert Mennemeier talks even more directly of a
“wolf society,” which Brecht uses as metaphor for his “negative didactics.” To
picture this inhuman existence, Brecht has indeed used exceedingly drastic animal symbols, many of which center upon the notorious wolf of proverbs and
proverbial expressions. Proverbial instances such as “He is just a lamb between
two wolves,” “We are holding an old wolf by the ear / who, if he escapes, will
attack us both,” and “Killing wolf in a sheep skin” illustrate this very clearly.
With five occurrences, the most frequently employed leitmotif for Brecht became the internationally known classical proverb “Homo homini lupus” (Man
is a wolf to man), which is a traditional proverb in most European languages.
Brecht had expressed this already in 1932 in his discussion of the question “Is
communism exclusive?” as part of his “Comments about the [play] Mother.”
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215
There, Brecht summarizes his thoughts with a proverbial formula that simply
declares exploitative people to be wolves: “Our enemies are the enemies of
humankind. [ . . . ] Those who are a wolf to man aren’t human, but wolves.” And
the short poem “On a Japanese Drawing of a Puppet Show Played for Children
by Children” (1934) begins by making the alarming statement of how fragile
the establishment of a world is in which people act like wild animals:
Woe!
The immature stand on the tables.
In their play
They show what they have seen
How man treated man and was a wolf to him.
But then, in the first stanza of the poem “The Active Discontented” (1943),
Brecht, in the middle of World War II, achieved a positive alienation of the
proverb by adding just a single letter (from “ein” [a] to “kein” [no]):
The active discontented, your big teachers
Invented the construction of a community
In which man is no wolf to man.
And discovered the delight of man to eat his fill
and live in a dry place.
And his wish to be in charge of his own affairs.
This human wish itself has found expression in Brecht’s most humane proverbial alienation, written in the fateful year of 1938 at the end of his wellknown poem “To Posterity,” in which he defines the purpose of his own
writing as the fight to turn human wolves into helpful people:
But you, when at last it comes to pass
That man is a helper to man
Think of us
With mercy.
With this vision of the future, Brecht’s spirit of opposition would, of course,
disintegrate. But since he found himself only in a transition period toward
humanitarianism, he had to and could only portray what is happening
among people. Nevertheless, Brecht has anthropomorphized the proverb in
this statement in a hopeful manner, because in a new world of humanity, the
wolf in man would have to reform himself to a noble person.
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Proverbs
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN’S “THE WAY TO WEALTH”
For 25 years, from 1733 to 1758, the printer, publisher, inventor, scientist,
businessman, and diplomat Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) published his
successful Poor Richard’s Almanack for his fellow colonists. He sold about
10,000 copies each year, filling the small booklets of 24 to 36 pages with
weather and planting information as well as various short instructional and
entertaining tidbits. Next to the Bible, these almanacs were perhaps the most
widely read materials in the colonies. In fact, while preachers were quoting
Bible passages, the citizens of the day enjoyed citing the wisdom of the almanacs, which to a large degree was expressed in common proverbs.
Franklin was well aware of the success of his best-seller almanacs, and he
also knew, of course, that most of the proverbs listed in them he had in fact
taken from such well-known British proverb collections as George Herbert’s
Outlandish Proverbs (1640), James Howell’s Paroimiografia (1659), and
Thomas Fuller’s Gnomologia (1732). Nevertheless, he enjoyed hearing people
refer to them as proverbs of Poor Richard or even of Benjamin Franklin, admitting rather indirectly that he had “lifted” them from “the wisdom of many
ages and nations.” In 1788 he made the following comments, albeit without
explicitly revealing his sources (see Newcomb 1957):
In 1732 I first published my Almanac [for the year 1733] under the
name of Richard Saunders; it was continued by me about twenty-five
years, and commonly called Poor Richard’s Almanack. I endeavoured to
make it both entertaining and useful, and it accordingly came to be in
such demand, that I reaped considerable profit from it, vending annually near ten thousand. And observing that it was generally read, (scarce
any neighbourhood in the province being without it,) I considered it as
a proper vehicle for conveying instruction among the common people,
who bought scarcely any other books. I therefore filled all the little
spaces, that occurred between the remarkable days in the Calendar, with
proverbial sentences, chiefly such as inculcated industry and frugality, as
the means of procuring wealth, and thereby securing virtue; it being
more difficult for a man in want to act always honestly, as (to use here
one of those proverbs) “It is hard for an empty sack to stand upright.”
These proverbs, which contained the wisdom of many ages and nations,
I assembled and formed into a connected discourse, prefixed to the Almanac of 1758, as the harangue of a wise old man to the people attending an auction. The bringing all these scattered counsels thus into
a focus, enabled them to make greater impression. The piece, being uni-
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versally approved, was copied in all the newspapers of the American
Continent, reprinted in Britain on a large sheet of paper to be stuck up
in houses; two translations were made of it in France, and great numbers bought by the clergy and gentry, to distribute gratis among their
poor parishioners and tenants.
(cited from The Works of Benjamin Franklin, ed. by Jared Sparks.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Childs & Peterson, 1840, vol. 2, p. 92)
Altogether Franklin included 1,044 proverbs (about 40 each year) in his almanacs (see Barbour 1974), of which he chose 105 to be part of his celebrated essay “The Way to Wealth” (1758). As Stuart A. Gallacher has shown,
only the following five proverbs in this essay were actually coined by Franklin:
“Three removes is (are) as bad as a fire,” “Laziness travels so slowly, that
poverty soon overtakes him,” “Sloth makes all things difficult, but industry all
easy,” “Industry pays debts, while despair increases them,” and “There will be
sleeping enough in the grave” (Gallacher 1949). But while these texts actually
took on a proverbial status during Franklin’s time and beyond, they are not
New Yorker (November 15, 1976), p. 47.
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Proverbs
particularly current any longer, except perhaps for “Three removes is as bad
as a fire” and “There will be sleeping enough in the grave” (one of my personal favorites).
In any case, as Franklin himself stated in 1788, his essay on “The Way to
Wealth” was a hit among his compatriots, instructing them and later generations about virtue, prosperity, prudence, and above all economic common
sense. The essay contained the so-called Puritan ethics expressed in proverbs
that helped to shape the worldview of the young American nation. But there
was much influence also in Europe as the essay was translated into several
languages. The masterful treatise thus became a secular Bible of sorts,
spreading social wisdom in the form of folk wisdom to thousands of eager
followers. There is no doubt then that “The Way to Wealth” is one of the
truly significant documents in the history of proverbs, even if, as Franklin
admitted already in 1758 at the end of his essay, “not a tenth part of the wisdom was my own.”
The Way to Wealth (1758)
Courteous Reader, I have heard, that nothing gives an author so great
pleasure as to find his works respectfully quoted by others. Judge, then,
how much I must have been gratified by an incident I am going to relate to you. I stopped my horse lately, where a great number of people
were collected at an auction of merchants’ goods. The hour of the sale
not being come, they were conversing on the badness of the times; and
one of the company called to a plain, clean, old man, with white locks,
“Pray, Father Abraham, what think you of the times? Will not these
heavy taxes quite ruin the country? How shall we ever be able to pay
them? What would you advise us to?” Father Abraham stood up, and
replied, “If you would have my advice, I will give it you in short; for A
word to the wise is enough, as Poor Richard says.” They joined in desiring him to speak his mind, and gathering round him, he proceeded as
follows.
“Friends,” said he, “the taxes are indeed very heavy, and, if those laid
on by the government were the only ones we had to pay, we might more
easily discharge them; but we have many others, and much more grievous to some of us. We are taxed twice as much by our idleness, three
times as much by our pride, and four times as much by our folly; and
from these taxes the commissioners cannot ease or deliver us, by allowing an abatement. However, let us hearken to good advice, and something may be done for us; God helps them that help themselves, as Poor
Richard says.
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“I. It would be thought a hard government, that should tax its people one-tenth part of their time, to be employed in its service; but idleness taxes many of us much more; sloth, by bringing on diseases,
absolutely shortens life. Sloth, like rust, consumes faster than labor wears,
while the used key is always bright, as Poor Richard says. But dost thou
love life, then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of, as
Poor Richard says. How much more than is necessary do we spend in
sleep, forgetting, that The sleeping fox catches no poultry, and that There
will be sleeping enough in the grave, as Poor Richard says.
“If time be of all things the most precious, wasting time must be, as Poor
Richard says, the greatest prodigality; since, as he elsewhere tells us, Lost
time is never found again; and what we call time enough, always proves little enough. Let us then up and be doing, and doing to the purpose; so by
diligence shall we do more with less perplexity. Sloth makes all things
difficult, but industry all easy, and He that riseth late must trot all day, and
shall scarce overtake his business at night; while Laziness travels so slowly,
that Poverty soon overtakes him. Drive thy business, let not that drive thee,
and Early to bed, and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise,
as Poor Richard says.
“So what signifies wishing and hoping for better times? We may
make these times better, if we bestir ourselves. Industry need not wish,
and he that lives upon hopes will die fasting. There are no gains without
pains, then help, hands, for I have no lands; or, if I have, they are smartly
taxed. He that hath a trade hath an estate; and he that hath a calling, hath
an office of profit and honor, as Poor Richard says; but then the trade
must be worked at, and the calling followed, or neither the estate nor
the office will enable us to pay our taxes. If we are industrious, we shall
never starve; for, At the working man’s house hunger looks in, but dares not
enter. Nor will the bailiff or the constable enter, for Industry pays debts,
while despair increaseth them. What though you have found no treasure,
nor has any rich relation left you a legacy, Diligence is the mother of good
luck, and God gives all things to industry. Then plough deep while sluggards
sleep, and you shall have corn to sell and to keep. Work while it is called today, for you know not how much you may be hindered to-morrow. One
to-day is worth two to-morrows, as Poor Richard says; and further, Never
leave that till to-morrow, which you can do to-day. If you were a servant,
would you not be ashamed that a good master should catch you idle?
Are you then your own master? Be ashamed to catch yourself idle, when
there is so much to be done for yourself, your family, your country, and
your king. Handle your tools without mittens; remember, that The cat
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Proverbs
in gloves catches no mice, as Poor Richard says. It is true there is much to
be done, and perhaps you are weak-handed; but stick to it steadily, and
you will see great effects; for Constant dropping wears away stones; and
By diligence and patience the mouse ate in two the cable; and Little strokes
fell great oaks.
“Methinks I hear some of you say, ‘Must a man afford himself no
leisure?’ I will tell thee, my friend, what Poor Richard says, Employ thy
time well, if thou meanest to gain leisure; and, since thou art not sure of a
minute, throw not away an hour. Leisure is time for doing something
useful; this leisure the diligent man will obtain, but the lazy man never;
for A life of leisure and a life of laziness are two things. Many, without
labor, would live by their wits only, but they break for want of stock;
whereas industry gives comfort, and plenty, and respect. Fly pleasures,
and they will follow you. The diligent spinner has a large shift; and now I
have a sheep and a cow, everybody bids me good morrow.
“II. But with our industry we must likewise be steady, settled, and
careful, and oversee our own affairs with our own eyes, and not trust too
much to others; for, as Poor Richard says,
I never saw an oft-removed tree,
Nor yet an oft-removed family,
That throve so well as those that settled be.
And again, Three removes are as bad as a fire; and again, Keep thy shop,
and thy shop will keep thee; and again, If you would have your business
done, go; if not, send. And again,
He that by the plough would thrive,
Himself must either hold or drive.
And again, The eye of a master will do more work than both his hands;
and again, Want of care does us more damage than want of knowledge;
and again, Not to oversee workmen, is to leave them your purse open.
Trusting too much to others’ care is the ruin of many; for In the affairs of
this world men are saved, not by faith, but by the want of it; but a man’s
own care is profitable; for, If you would have a faithful servant, and one
that you like, serve yourself. A little neglect may breed great mischief; for
want of a nail the shoe was lost; for want of a shoe the horse was lost; and
for want of a horse the rider was lost, being overtaken and slain by the
enemy; all for want of a little care about a horse-shoe nail.
“III. So much for industry, my friends, and attention to one’s own
business; but to these we must add frugality, if we would make our in-
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dustry more certainly successful. A man may, if he knows not how to
save as he gets, keep his nose all his life to the grindstone, and die not
worth a groat at last. A fat kitchen makes a lean will; and
Many estates are spent in the getting,
Since women for tea forsook spinning and knitting,
And men for punch forsook hewing and splitting.
If you would be wealthy, think of saving as well as of getting. The Indies
have not made Spain rich, because her outgoes are greater than her incomes.
“Away then with your expensive follies, and you will not then have so
much cause to complain of hard times, heavy taxes, and chargeable families; for
Women and wine, game and deceit,
Make the wealth small and the want great.
And further, What maintains one vice would bring up two children. You
may think, perhaps, that a little tea, or a little punch now and then, diet
a little more costly, clothes a little finer, and a little entertainment now
and then, can be no great matter; but remember, Many a little makes a
mickle. Beware of little expenses: A small leak will sink a great ship, as
Poor Richard says; and again, Who dainties love, shall beggars prove; and
moreover, Fools make feasts, and wise men eat them.
“Here you are all got together at this sale of fineries and knickknacks. You call them goods; but, if you do not take care, they will prove
evils to some of you. You expect they will be sold cheap, and perhaps
they may for less than they cost; but, if you have no occasion for them,
they must be dear to you. Remember what Poor Richard says; Buy what
thou hast no need of, and ere long thou shall sell thy necessaries. And again,
At a great pennyworth pause a while. He means, that perhaps the cheapness is apparent only, and not real; or the bargain, by straitening thee in
thy business, may do thee more harm than good. For in another place
he says, Many have been ruined by buying good pennyworths. Again, It is
foolish to lay out money in a purchase of repentance; and yet this folly is
practised every day at auctions, for want of minding the Almanac.
Many a one, for the sake of finery on the back, have gone with a hungry belly and half-starved their families. Silks and satins, scarlet and velvets, put out the kitchen fire, as Poor Richard says.
“These are not the necessaries of life; they can scarcely be called the
conveniences; and yet, only because they look pretty, how many want to
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Proverbs
have them! By these, and other extravagances, the genteel are reduced to
poverty, and forced to borrow of those whom they formerly despised,
but who, through industry and frugality, have maintained their standing; in which case it appears plainly, that A ploughman on his legs is
higher than a gentleman on his knees, as Poor Richard says. Perhaps they
have had a small estate left them, which they knew not the getting of;
they think, It is day, and will never be night; that a little to be spent out
of so much is not worth minding; but Always taking out of the meal-tub,
and never putting in, soon comes to the bottom, as Poor Richard says; and
then, When the well is dry, they know the worth of water. But this they
might have known before, if they had taken his advice. If you would
know the value of money, go and try to borrow some; for he that goes a borrowing goes a sorrowing, as Poor Richard says; and indeed so does he that
lends to such people, when he goes to get it in again. Poor Dick further
advises, and says,
Fond pride of dress is sure a very curse;
Ere fancy you consult, consult your purse.
And again, Pride is as loud a beggar as Want, and a great deal more saucy.
When you have bought one fine thing, you must buy ten more, that
your appearance may be all of a piece; but Poor Dick says, It is easier to
suppress the first desire, than to satisfy all that follow it. And it is as truly
folly for the poor to ape the rich, as for the frog to swell in order to equal
the ox.
Vessels large may venture more,
But little boats should keep near shore.
It is, however, a folly soon punished; for, as Poor Richard says, Pride
that dines on vanity, sups on contempt. Pride breakfasted with Plenty,
dined with Poverty, and supped with Infamy. And, after all, of what use is
this pride of appearance, for which so much is risked, so much is suffered? It cannot promote health, nor ease pain; it makes no increase of
merit in the person; it creates envy; it hastens misfortune.
“But what madness must it be to run in debt for these superfluities?
We are offered by the terms of this sale, six months’ credit, and that,
perhaps, has induced some of us to attend it, because we cannot spare
the ready money, and hope now to be fine without it. But, ah! think
what you do when you run in debt; you give to another power over your
liberty. If you cannot pay at the time, you will be ashamed to see your
creditor; you will be in fear when you speak to him; you will make poor,
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pitiful, sneaking excuses, and, by degrees, come to lose your veracity,
and sink into base, downright lying; for The second vice is lying, the first
is running in debt, as Poor Richard says; and again, to the same purpose,
Lying rides upon Debt’s back; whereas a free-born Englishman ought not
to be ashamed nor afraid to see or speak to any man living. But poverty
often deprives a man of all spirit and virtue. It is hard for an empty bag
to stand upright.
“What would you think of that prince, or of that government, who
should issue an edict forbidding you to dress like a gentleman or gentlewoman, on pain of imprisonment or servitude? Would you not say
that you were free, have a right to dress as you please, and that such an
edict would be a breach of your privileges, and such a government
tyrannical? And yet you are about to put yourself under such tyranny,
when you run in debt for such dress! Your creditor has authority, at his
pleasure, to deprive you of your liberty, by confining you in gaol till you
shall be able to pay him. When you have got your bargain, you may,
perhaps, think little of payment; but, as Poor Richard says, Creditors
have better memories than debtors; creditors are a superstitious sect, great
observers of set days and times. The day comes round before you are
aware, and the demand is made before you are prepared to satisfy it; or,
if you bear your debt in mind, the term, which at first seemed so long,
will, as it lessens, appear extremely short. Time will seem to have added
wings to his heels as well as his shoulders. Those have a short Lent, who
owe money to be paid at Easter. At present, perhaps, you may think yourselves in thriving circumstances, and that you can bear a little extravagance without injury; but
For age and want save while you may;
No morning sun lasts a whole day.
Gain may be temporary and uncertain, but ever, while you live, expense
is constant and certain; and It is easier to build two chimneys, than to keep
one in fuel, as Poor Richard says; so, Rather go to bed supperless, than rise
in debt.
Get what you can, and what you get hold;
’Tis the stone that will turn all your lead into gold.
And, when you have got the Philosopher’s stone, sure you will no longer
complain of bad times, or the difficulty of paying taxes.
“IV. This doctrine, my friends, is reason and wisdom; but, after all, do
not depend too much upon your own industry, and frugality, and pru-
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Proverbs
dence, though excellent things; for they may all be blasted, without the
blessing of Heaven; and, therefore, ask that blessing humbly, and be not
uncharitable to those that at present seem to want it, but comfort and
help them. Remember, Job suffered, and was afterwards prosperous.
“And now, to conclude, Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will
learn in no other, as Poor Richard says, and scarce in that; for, it is true,
We may give advice, but we cannot give conduct. However, remember
this, They that will not be counselled, cannot be helped; and further, that,
If you will not hear Reason, she will surely rap your knuckles, as Poor
Richard says.”
Thus the old gentleman ended his harangue. The people heard it,
and approved the doctrine; and immediately practised the contrary, just
as if it had been a common sermon; for the auction opened, and they
began to buy extravagantly. I found the good man had thoroughly studied my Almanacs, and digested all I had dropped on these topics during
the course of twenty-five years. The frequent mention he made of me
must have tired any one else; but my vanity was wonderfully delighted
with it, though I was conscious that not a tenth part of the wisdom was
my own, which he ascribed to me, but rather the gleanings that I had
made of the sense of all ages and nations. However, I resolved to be the
better for the echo of it; and, though I had at first determined to buy
stuff for a new coat, I went away resolved to wear my old one a little
longer. Reader, if thou wilt do the same, thy profit will be as great as
mine. I am, as ever, thine to serve thee,
RICHARD SAUNDERS.
(cited from The Works of Benjamin Franklin, ed.
by Jared Sparks. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Childs &
Peterson, 1840, vol. 2, pp. 94–103; italics in original)
PROVERB POEMS AND POPULAR SONGS
Proverbs do not only appear in prose and dramatic literature. They also
play a considerable role in lyric poetry and in the lyrics of songs. Some poetical texts simply exemplify but one proverb in a didactic or critical fashion,
employing the proverb as the title and citing it within the poetic text, as for
example in Arthur Gillespie’s song “Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder”
(1900) or Susan Fromberg Schaeffer’s poem “The Burnt Child Dreads the
Fire” (1972). But there are also poems and songs of several stanzas in which
the proverb title is repeated at the beginning and/or end of each stanza as a
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225
leitmotif. This is the case with such poems and songs as Alice Cary’s “Hoe
Your Own Row” (1849), Harry Clifton’s “Paddle Your Own Canoe” (1866),
and Vincent Godfrey Burns’s “Man Doth not Live by Bread Alone” (1952).
Some lines from popular songs have in fact become proverbs over time (see
Barbour 1963), as for example the proverb “The grass is always greener on the
other side of the fence” that originated with Raymond B. Egan’s and Richard
A. Whiting’s humorous song “The Grass Is Always Greener in the Other Fellow’s Yard” (1924; see Mieder 1993b).
While the proverb is usually cited in its standard form when used as a leitmotif, there is also W.H. Auden’s poem “Leap Before You Look” (1940) that
twists the wisdom of the traditional proverb “Look before you leap” around
and encourages people to take the “leap” into absurdity (see Mieder 1989:
189–190). And Bob Dylan definitely has the proverb “A rolling stone gathers
no moss” in mind in the lyrics of his song “Like a Rolling Stone” (1965),
whose title alludes to the proverb and is repeated at the end of each stanza (see
Mieder 1989: 211–213). And yet, such proverb allusions are nothing new, as
can be seen from Emily Dickinson’s short poem “Which Is Best?” (1865)
with its play on the proverb “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush” (see
Barnes 1979).
In addition to these poems and songs that interpret but one proverb, texts
can also be found in which several proverbs or proverbial expressions are combined into a meaningful message. One of the finest examples is the eleventh
section of Carl Sandburg’s epic poem “Good Morning, America” (1928),
where Sandburg presents dozens of proverbs and proverbial expressions to
characterize the United States as a country of immigrants by means of folk
speech (see Mieder 1971). An even greater tour de force poem that consists of
nothing but proverbial language is Arthur Guiterman’s “Proverbial Tragedy”
(1915). As this American poet twists and changes standard English proverbs
into a proverbial montage, he succeeds in presenting a negative view of the
world at the beginning of the First World War. Eighty years later, the modern
poet Paul Muldoon once again assembled numerous fractured proverbs in his
“sonnet” with the title “Symposium” (1995) to express in a (non)sensical
fashion the contradictory views expressed at an intellectual gathering.
There is no need to mention every poem and song reproduced here, but
these 11 chronologically arranged texts are ample proof that poets and songwriters delight in using proverbs (for additional texts see Mieder 1989:
171–221). In fact, proverb poetry and proverb songs go back to the Middle
Ages, showing once again that the traditional or innovative use of proverbs is
truly ubiquitous (see Doyle 1975; Mieder 1980 and 1988). And how could it
be any different? After all, proverbs contain the wisdom of humankind and as
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Proverbs
such they add much metaphorical expressiveness to the indirect language of
poetry and song.
Hoe Your Own Row (1849)
Alice Cary (1820–1871)
I think there are some maxims
Under the sun,
Scarce worth preservation;
But here, boys, is one
So sound and so simple
’Tis worth while to know;
And all in the single line,
“Hoe your own row!”
If you want to have riches,
And want to have friends,
Don’t trample the means down
And look for the ends;
But always remember
Wherever you go,
The wisdom of practicing
“Hoe your own row!”
Don’t just sit and pray
For increase of your store,
But work; who will help himself,
Heaven helps more.
The weeds while you’re sleeping,
Will come up and grow,
But if you would have the
Full ear, you must hoe!
Nor will it do only
To hoe out the weeds,
You must make your ground mellow
And put in the seeds;
Any when the young blade
Pushes through, you must know
There is nothing will strengthen
Its growth like the hoe!
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There’s no use of saying
What will be, will be;
Once try it, my lack-brain,
And see what you’ll see!
Why, just small potatoes,
And few in a row;
You’d better take hold then,
And honestly hoe!
A good many workers
I’ve known in my time—
Some builders of houses,
Some builders of rhyme;
And they that were prospered,
Were prospered, I know,
By the intent and meaning of
“Hoe your own row!”
I’ve known too, a good many
Idlers, who said,
“I’ve right to my living,
The world owes me bread!”
A right! lazy lubber!
A thousand times No!
’Tis his, and his only
Who hoes his own row.
(cited from Alice and Phoebe Cary, Ballads for Little Folks.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1873, pp. 81–83)
Which Is Best? (1865)
Emily Dickinson (1830–1886)
Which is best? Heaven—
Or only Heaven to come
With that old Codicil of Doubt?
I cannot help esteem
The “Bird within the Hand”
Superior to the one
The “Bush” may yield me
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Proverbs
Or may not
Too late to choose again.
(cited from The Poems by Emily Dickinson,
ed. by Thomas H. Johnson. Cambridge,
Massachusetts: Harvard University Press,
1951, 1955, 1963, 1979, vol. 2, p. 726)
Paddle Your Own Canoe (1865)
Harry Clifton (1832–1872), author
Martin Hobson (1833–1880), composer
I’ve traveled about a bit in my time
And of troubles I’ve seen a few,
But I found it better in every clime
To paddle my own canoe.
My wants are small; I care not at all
If my debts are paid when due;
I drive away strife in the ocean of life
While I paddle my own canoe.
Chorus:
Then love your neighbor as yourself,
As the world you travel through.
And never sit down with a tear or frown,
But paddle your own canoe.
I have no wife to bother my life,
No lover to prove untrue;
But the whole day long, with a laugh and a song,
I paddle my own canoe.
I rise with the lark, and from daylight till dark
I do what I have to do;
I’m careless of wealth if I’ve only the health
To paddle my own canoe.
It’s all very well to depend on a friend,
That is, if you’ve proved him true;
But you’ll find it better by far in the end
To paddle your own canoe.
Contexts
229
To borrow is dearer by far than to buy,
A maxim, though old, still true;
You never will sigh if you only will try
To paddle your own canoe.
If a hurricane rise in the mid-day skies
And the sun is lost to view,
Move steadily by, with a steadfast eye,
And paddle your own canoe.
The daisies that grow in the bright green fields
Are blooming so sweet for you;
So never sit down with a tear or a frown,
But paddle your own canoe.
(cited from the sheet music of the song
Paddle Your Own Canoe, lyrics by Harry Clifton,
music by Martin Hobson. Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania: W.R. Smith, 1865)
Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder (1900)
Arthur Gillespie (1868–1914)
Sweetheart I have grown so lonely,
Living thus away from you,
For I love you and you only;
Still I wonder if you’re true.
I regret the harsh words spoken,
That I know have caused you pain,
And my heart is nearly broken,
Say you love me once again.
Chorus:
Absence makes the heart grow fonder,
That is why I long for you;
Lonely thro’ the nights I ponder,
Wond’ring darling, if you’re true.
Distance only lends enchantment,
Tho’ the ocean waves divide,
Absence makes the heart grow fonder,
Longing to be near your side.
230
Proverbs
Has the love that once was dearer
Than all else to me grown cold?
Or has absence drawn us nearer,
To each other as of old?
Promise then you will not sever,
From the ties that bind us two.
Say you will be mine forever,
Tell me that you still are true.
(cited from 500 Songs that Made the All-Time Hit Parade,
ed. by Lyle Kenyon Engel. New York:
Bantam Books, 1964, p. 135)
A Proverbial Tragedy (1915)
Arthur Guiterman (1871–1943)
The Rolling Stone and the Turning Worm
And the Cat that Looked at a King
Set forth on the Road that Leads to Rome—
For Youth will have its Fling,
The Goose will lay the Golden Eggs,
The Dog must have his Day,
And Nobody locks the Stable Door
Till the Horse is stol’n away.
But the Rolling Stone, that was never known
To Look before the Leap
Plunged down the hill to the Waters Still
That run so dark, so deep;
And the leaves were stirred by the Early Bird
Who sought his breakfast where
He marked the squirm of the Turning Worm—
And the Cat was Killed by Care!
(cited from Arthur Guiterman, The Laughing Muse.
New York: Harper & Brothers, 1915, p. 16)
The Grass Is Always Greener in the
Other Fellow’s Yard (1924)
Raymond B. Egan (1890–1952), author
Richard A. Whiting (1891–1938), composer
Why do you wash your windows said Misses Haggerty
So I can watch the neighbors said Misses Hennessy
Contexts
231
Cover illustration of sheet music publication of the song
(1924).
They have a new piano She has a hat I like
Lots better things than I have so I took it up with Mike
The language that he used might seem amiss
Translated from profane it goes like this
1st Verse Chorus
Sure the Grass is always greener in the other fellow’s yard
And the little row we have to hoe Seems mighty hard
You loved our little roadster Till O’Day’s got their sedan
And now you call our roadster just an old tomato can
I can see where Pat is lucky as I look across the fence
232
Proverbs
And as like as not he thinks I’ve got more luck than sense
If we all could wear green glasses then it wouldn’t be so hard
Just to see how green the grass is in our own back yard
The Grass is always greener in the other fellow’s yard
And the little row we have to hoe Seems mighty hard
You always see the fine clothes Maggie’s hangin’ on her back
And never see the mortgage that is hangin’ on their shack
Mike is buying fancy bonnets just to decorate her dome
But he hasn’t got a single drop of rye at home
Get the home brew and some glasses than it wouldn’t be so hard
Just to see how green the grass is in our own back yard.
Maggie and Mike are married that may be why they fight
They dearly love to battle they’re at it day and night
He’s always praising some girl Who married someone else
Surely a lot of trouble started with their wedding bells
But there’s one comeback that she loves to spring
And he shuts up each time she starts to sing
2nd Verse Chorus
Sure the Grass is always greener in the other fellow’s yard
And the little row you have to hoe Seems mighty hard
You’re mighty fond of Pat’s wife Just because she isn’t yours
And I tho’t Pat was handsome till I found that he snores
While you love to knock my cooking and to praise each girl you see
Does it dawn on you there’s husbands who rave over me
If you’d only wear green glasses then it wouldn’t be so hard
Just to see how green the grass is in our own back yard
The Grass is always greener in the other fellow’s yard
And the little row you have to hoe Seems mighty hard
You criticize my dresses ’Cause I made each one I’ve worn
If I wore what you bought me I could shock September Morn
When you stagger home some evening and you don’t know who I am
And you start to sing that you are king of old Siam
After I remove your glasses explanations won’t be hard
And you’ll see how green the grass is in your own back yard.
(cited from the sheet music of the song The Grass Is Always Greener
[In The Other Fellow’s Yard], lyrics by Raymond B. Egan, music by
Richard A. Whiting. New York: Jerome H. Remick, 1924)
Contexts
233
Takes Two to Tango (1952)
Al Hoffman (1902–1960), author
Dick Manning (born 1912), composer
Pearl Bailey (1918–1990), singer
Takes two to tango, two to tango,
Two to really get the feeling of romance.
Let’s do the tango, do the tango,
Do the dance of love.
You can sail in a ship by yourself,
Take a nap or a nip by yourself.
You can get into debt on your own.
There are lots of things that you can do alone.
(But it)
Takes two to tango (etc.)
You can croon to the moon by yourself.
You can laugh like a loon by yourself.
Spend the lot, go to pot on your own.
There are lots of things that you can do alone.
(But it)
Takes two to tango (etc.)
(cited from the sheet music of the song Takes Two to Tango,
lyrics by Al Hoffman, music by Dick Manning.
New York: Harman Music, 1952)
Man Doth not Live by Bread Alone (1952)
Vincent Godfrey Burns (1893–1979)
Man doth not live by bread alone
But by each elevating thought
By which his ship of life is wrought;
Each harbor light however dim
That makes life’s broad sea plain to him
Is like a searchlight from the throne—
Man doth not live by bread alone.
234
Proverbs
Man doth not live by bread alone
But by those truths which greatly feed
His hungering soul’s deep spirit-need,
By inward music sweet and clear
That tunes with joy his inner ear;
Give man the food of soul, not stone—
He doth not live by bread alone.
Man doth not live by bread alone,
He hath a hunger of the heart
And cannot walk from man apart;
No living human long can stand
Without the grasp of friendly hand,
The touch, the fellowship, the voice
That make the lonely heart rejoice;
Love all our sorrows can atone—
Man doth not live by bread alone.
(cited from Vincent Godfrey Burns, Redwood and Other Poems.
Washington, D.C.: New World Books, 1952, p. 114)
The Burnt Child Dreads the Fire (1972)
Susan Fromberg Schaeffer (born 1941)
The burnt child dreads the fire.
So does the toast, and the match.
The burnt match dreads the child.
Those miserable creatures,
They can cremate a whole box at a time.
It is a great conflagration,
Little flames waving their victory flags.
Doesn’t anyone worry about them?
Not to mention the little burning
Stomachs of Edison ovens,
What they suffer every day,
And the heart-burn
Under the hoods of the cars.
And the candles, the beautiful candles,
Contexts
235
The lovely manicured fingers
On altars, melting themselves down
In prayer.
I tell you, everything dreads the fire.
And I will cry over spilt milk
As if I were spilt milk
Until they all are put out
And I tell you
You don’t have the slightest idea
Of what it all means.
(cited from Susan Fromberg Schaeffer, “Proverbs,” Poetry, 120, no. 1
[April 1972], pp. 6–11 [this poem on pp. 10–11])
Symposium (1995)
Paul Muldoon (born 1951)
You can bring a horse to water but you can’t make it hold
its nose to the grindstone and hunt with the hounds.
Every dog has a stitch in time. Two heads? You’ve been sold
one good turn. One good turn deserves a bird in the hand.
A bird in the hand is better than no bread.
To have your cake is to pay Paul.
Make hay while you can still hit the nail on the head.
For want of a nail the sky might fall.
People in glass houses can’t see the wood
for the new broom. Rome wasn’t built between two stools.
Empty vessels wait for no man.
A hair of the dog is a friend indeed.
There’s no fool like the fool
who’s shot his bolt. There’s no smoke after the horse is gone.
(cited from Paul Muldoon, Hay. New York: Farrar,
Straus and Giroux, 1998, p. 27)
236
Proverbs
Exception (2001)
David R. Slavitt (born 1935)
But, in the land of the blind,
where the one-eyed man is king,
when he wears the emperor’s new clothes,
he can get away with it.
(cited from David R. Slavitt, Falling from Silence. Poems.
Baton Rouge, Louisiana: Louisiana State
University Press, 2001, p. 11)
PROVERBS IN CARICATURES, CARTOONS, AND COMICS
The pictorialization of proverbs began during the Middle Ages, when
metaphorical proverbs were illustrated in woodcuts and misericords. But
proverbs were also depicted in engravings and emblems, with Pieter Bruegel
the Elder’s oil painting Netherlandish Proverbs (1559) and its more than 100
individual proverb scenes representing the ultimate achievement in this long
iconographic tradition (see the numerous studies in Mieder and Sobieski
1999). Even the use of proverbs as satirical caricatures or humorous cartoons
goes back at least to the seventeenth century, and certainly by the beginning
of the nineteenth century sequences of framed images based on proverbs foreshadow the comic strips of today.
This tradition of illustrating proverbs for the purpose of humorous, ironical, or satirical commentaries on the sociopolitical life has been maintained
by modern artists (see Mieder 1989: 277–292). They too delight in depicting
common proverbs like “Strike while the iron is hot,” “The early bird gets the
worm,” or “Too many cooks spoil the broth.” For some proverbs there exists
an iconographic history from medieval to modern times that comprises
dozens of woodcuts, misericords, emblems, paintings, caricatures, cartoons,
and comic strips, including also various types of illustrated greeting cards.
Usually the modern illustrations have captions to assure meaningful communication, but there are also proverb depictions that merely allude to the
proverb or that exclude any caption whatsoever. In the latter case the cartoonist expects viewers to understand the proverbial message from the picture
alone, something that is perfectly possible if the proverb is in fact well known.
Even though the proverbs in the captions are at times cited traditionally,
their texts are for the most part slightly changed in order to create the humor
or satire that is underscored by their depiction in the caricature or cartoon
(see Bryant 1951). But be that as it may, it certainly is not difficult to find
Contexts
237
such proverb depictions in magazines and newspapers, commenting as it were
with image and text on literally all social issues. While caricatures in newspapers usually refer to social and political problems, proverb illustrations in the
comics section stress the humorous side of life. Single-frame series like Family Circus, Dennis, the Menace, and The Far Side abound with proverbs (see
Winick 1998: 217–283), and comic strips like Peanuts, Hi and Lois, and Beetle Bailey are frequently based on more than one proverb. It would certainly
be erroneous to assume that proverb illustrations find their way primarily into
conservative publications owing to the didactic and sapient nature of proverbs.
Nothing could be further from the truth, for sophisticated magazines or newspapers like the New Yorker and the New York Times abound with proverbial
caricatures and cartoons. The same is true for Playboy, for example, where
such proverb depictions are employed for sexual humor. I have been able to
collect many references from various languages and cultures over the years,
with my international proverb archive containing about 7,500 proverb illustrations of various types. Here are at least a few chronologically arranged representative examples, showing that metaphorical proverbs are in fact
verbalized pictures that lend themselves well as humorous or serious commentaries on the human condition in an ever-changing world.
Proverb: “The early bird gets the worm.” New Yorker (May 3, 1958), p. 43.
Proverb: “A bird in the
hand is worth two in
the bush.” Playboy (May
1969), p. 245.
Proverb: “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.” Hallmark
Contemporary Cards (purchased in December 1977, Burlington, VT). Peanuts © United Feature Syndicate, Inc.
238
Proverb: “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, again.” New Yorker (April 17,
1978), p. 34.
Proverb: “Where there is a will, there is a way.” Cited in Punch ( June
14, 1978), p. 1017. Reproduced with permission of Punch Ltd.
239
Proverb: “The love of money is the root of all evil.” Cited in Brattleboro [Vermont] Reformer (February 28, 1981), p. 14. Reprinted with special permission of King Features Syndicate.
Proverb: “Curiosity killed the cat.” Cited in Brattleboro [Vermont] Reformer (November 8, 1988), p. 9.
Reprinted with special permission of King Features
Syndicate.
240
Proverb: “Opportunity knocks but once.” Better Homes and Gardens
(September 1981), p. 184.
Proverb: “A dog is man’s best friend.” New Yorker (February 22, 1988),
p. 96.
241
Proverb: “Garbage in,
garbage out.” New Yorker
(August 23, 1993), p. 60.
Proverb: “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.” Cited in Burlington [Vermont] Free Press (April 4, 1994), p. 6A. Reprinted with special permission of King Features Syndicate.
242
Proverb: “April showers bring May flowers.” Cited in Burlington [Vermont]
Free Press (April 28, 1999), p. 4C. Reprinted with special permission of King
Features Syndicate.
Proverb: “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.” Cited in
Burlington [Vermont] Free Press (September 22, 2000), p.
5C. Reprinted with special permission of King Features
Syndicate.
243
244
Proverbs
PROVERBS AND THE WORLD OF ADVERTISING
Proverbs have been an intricate part of the persuasive if not manipulative
tactics of advertisements for a long time. Copywriters noted decades ago that
the authority and truth inherent in proverbs could easily be exploited as advertising headlines. In order to add even more convincing power to such
proverbial slogans, they often use biblical proverbs, thus putting an almost
sacrosanct claim of high value on the advertised product. While such traditional use of proverbs continues in advertisements to the present day, the
modern proverbial slogans tend to be based on different strategies. Proverbs
are more often than not twisted into innovative formulations based on puns
that act as attention-getters. An eye-catching picture and relatively little precise information do the rest to push the reader and viewer into a purchasing
decision (Mieder 1989: 293–315; Winick 1998: 163–216).
Another reason for the frequent use of proverbs or proverbial structures as
advertising slogans lies in the fact that their messages need to be communicated in clear and short sentences. Proverbs certainly satisfy the demand for
conciseness and simplicity, but even more importantly, they inspire trustworthiness in the advertised product by awakening positive traditional feelings in
the consumer. After all, proverbs contain apparent truths and merchants supposedly want to tell the truth about their products. The authority of generations speaks through proverbs, and they are thus perfectly suited to be
employed as large headlines. It is a known fact that the headline or slogan is
the most important single element of an advertisement, for usually five times
as many people read the headline as read the explanatory text. Little wonder,
then, that most advertisements consist of a large headline and an illustration
rather than detailed verbal descriptions.
While many advertisements contain traditional or twisted proverbs as headlines, copywriters have also attempted to create proverb-like slogans that will be
memorable and recognizable. For this reason their slogans are based on the
same markers as proverbs, to wit alliteration, parallelism, rhyme, ellipsis, and so
on (Powers 1933). The difference between the slogan and the proverb lies therefore not so much in form but rather in the intended message. The slogan is a
more narrow statement of a particular advertising theme, whereas the proverb
expresses a generalized truth (Mieder and Mieder 1977). This is especially the
case when the name of a product appears in the proverbial slogan, as is the case
with the following Coca-Cola slogans based on proverbs: “All roads lead by
Coca-Cola signs” (1929), “Thirst come—thirst served” (1932), “Where there’s
Coca-Cola, there’s hospitality” (1935), and “Coca-Cola: A chore’s best friend”
(1936). But there are also such slogans as “It’s the real thing” (1942) and
“Things go better with Coke” (1963), that were not based on proverbs and
their structures but that certainly have taken on a proverbial character.
Contexts
245
In a culture where the mass media have a constant presence, advertisements play an incredible communicative role. They certainly represent a fertile ground for the traditional and innovative use of proverbs and are ample
proof that proverbs and twisted anti-proverbs are part of modern communication. But advertisements are not only tradition bearers of proverbial wisdom, they also help to create new proverbs, to wit “A picture is worth a
thousand words” that was coined by Fred Barnard in 1921 as a slogan to
argue for the need of eye-catching pictures in good advertisements. By now
the slogan has become a proverb that expresses a basic truth about modern
societies with their stress on visual communication (see Mieder 1990). There
are many other examples of this process from advertising slogans to new
proverbs (see Barrick 1986), and the wide and fast dissemination of these
messages via the mass media helps to establish them as bona fide proverbs of
the modern age.
Proverb: “One man’s meat is another man’s poison.” Gourmet (September 1974), p. 69.
Proverb: “Different strokes
for different folks.” Cited
in Time (December 16,
1974), p. 31. Reprinted with
permission of Volkswagen of
America.
Proverb: “Man does not
live by bread alone.” Cited
in Women’s Day (December 13, 1983), p. 51.
Reprinted with permission of General Electric.
246
Proverb: “Two heads are
better than one.” Cited
in Women’s Day (December 13, 1983), p. 184.
Proverb: “The pen is mightier than
the sword.” Cited in Los Angeles
Times (December 13, 1987), p. 32.
247
Proverb: “A penny
saved is a penny
earned.” Cited in
New Yorker (May 22,
1989), back cover.
Reprinted with permission of Volkswagen of America.
Proverb: “Absence makes
the heart grow fonder.”
Cited in New Yorker
(February 14, 1994),
back cover.
248
Proverb: “Waste not, want not.”
Cited in Parade Magazine (April
17, 1994), p. 10.
Proverb: “Been there, done
that.” Cited in Playboy
(September 1998), p. 42.
249
250
Proverbs
PROVERBS AS HEADLINES AND SLOGANS
Journalists have long ago discovered the usefulness and effectiveness of
proverbial headlines. Placed at the beginning of an article in large and bold
print, they summarize the content of a newspaper or magazine article into an
interpretive and emotionalized image. As with advertising slogans, traditional
proverbs or their innovative variations serve as attention-getters to get readers
to stop and actually read the following article. While the proverb of the headline does not deal with specifics, the subtitle usually zeroes in on the actual
topic. For example, the headline might simply read “A new broom sweeps
clean,” while the subtitle states “New president makes major structural
changes,” with the article discussing the details of the innovations. The subject
matter of the articles does not appear to be of any consequence in this matter.
Journalists simply delight in citing traditional proverbs that are short enough
to fit into a one-line headline. If they exceed the limited space, they are quickly
shortened into mere allusions that will be understood by most readers. But
above all, journalists enjoy “playing” with proverbs, creating revealing antiproverbs that will get the attention of the readers, who then want to read the
entire article (Alexander 1986; McKenna 1996; Mieder 1993: 58–97). Such
proverbial headlines can be found in all sections of newspapers and magazines,
from politics and economics to sports and entertainment. This play with
proverbial language can go so far that up to three headlines based on proverbs
and proverbial expressions can be found on just one page, including sophisticated newspapers like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.
It should also be noted that journalists and freelance writers like writing
popular essays on various aspects of proverbs. There are numerous essays that
deal with the origin, meaning, and value of proverbs. Usually such essays
question the wisdom of proverbs, pointing to such contradictory pairs as
“You’re never too old to learn” and “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”
And yet, these essays in the mass media show that people continue to be fascinated by the ubiquitous proverbs, realizing very well that they are part and
parcel of everyday communication (Mieder 1993: 18–40). And besides, who
would not be interested in knowing, for example, that the splendid slogan
“When it rains, it pours” first appeared in 1914 to advertise the fact that the
Morton Salt Company had developed a salt that would pour out of a package
even in humid weather. The slogan was based on the eighteenth-century
proverb “It never rains but it pours,” but today the advertising slogan has basically pushed the proverb aside. While packages of Morton’s Salt still exhibit
the slogan together with the little umbrella girl and her salt container in the
rain, the slogan-turned-proverb has taken on a life of its own. Most speakers
today are not necessarily identifying its message and wisdom with the origi-
Contexts
251
nal advertisement any longer when they comment on situations that have
nothing to do with pouring salt but rather with problems or inconveniences
that appear to be making a bad situation even worse.
Mention should also be made that proverbs and their structures are used in
graffiti, on bumper stickers, and of course also on that ubiquitous T-shirt with
its proverbial slogans. Many of them contain political and socioeconomic messages, while maintaining the structure and some of the basic wording of the
original proverb. There is much satire, irony, humor, wordplay, and at times
nonsense in these modern anti-proverbs. Some of them also exhibit aggressive,
scatological, obscene, sexual, and defiant messages (see Dundes 1966; Nierenberg 1983; Williams 1991; Tóthné Litovkina 1999). In fact, proverbial graffiti
on the Berlin Wall, bridge abutments, walls, subway cars, or bathrooms are a
revolt of sorts against the rationality, conformity, and moral standards of the
traditional proverbial rules and the social mores that they represent. The parodies of proverbs scrawled on walls can also be purchased as innovative bumper
stickers and T-shirts, which are popular in many parts of the world (Oledzki
1979; Mato 1994). All of these modern anti-proverbs are clear indications that
proverbs contain impressive regenerational powers, with some of these innovative formulations reaching proverbial status in due time.
Proverb: “Hope springs eternal.” Cited in Time (April
26, 1976), front cover.
Proverb: “All is fair in love
and war.” Cited in Time
(February 13, 1978),
p. 74. © 1978 TIME Inc.
Reprinted with permission.
Proverb: “All that glitters is not gold.” Cited
in U.S. News & World
Report (January 21,
1980), p. 75. © 1980
U.S. News and World
Report, L.P. Reprinted
with permission.
252
Proverb: “Blood is thicker than water.” Graffiti on the Berlin Wall (1980s).
Terry Tillman, The Writings on the Wall. Peace at the Berlin Wall. Santa Monica, CA: 22/7 Publishing Co., 1990, p. 31.
Proverb: “Actions speak louder than words.” Northern Sun Company (purchased in July 2001 at Burlington, Vermont).
253
254
Proverbs
Proverb: “When it rains it
pours.” Cited from Brad
Herzog, “They’re Gr-r-reat!
From Fast Food to Fast
Shoes, Icons are Everything.” US Airways Attaché
(August 1999), p. 57 (entire
article on pp. 54–59).
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Book-length studies are listed in the major bibliography at the end of this book.
Cross-references at the ends of entries correspond to collections listed in the bibliography.
Alexander, Richard. 1986. “Article Headlines in The Economist. An Analysis of Puns,
Allusions and [Proverbial] Metaphors.” Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik
11: 159–187.
Barbour, Frances M. 1963. “Some Uncommon Sources of Proverbs.” Midwest Folklore 13: 97–100.
Barnes, Daniel R. 1979. “Telling It Slant: Emily Dickinson and the Proverb.” Genre
12: 219–241; also in Mieder 1994: 439–465.
Barrick, Mac E. 1986. “‘Where’s the Beef ’?” Midwestern Journal of Language and
Folklore 12: 43–46.
Bryant, Margaret M. 1951. “Proverbial Lore in American Life and Speech.” Western
Folklore 10: 134–142.
Contexts
255
Doyle, Charles C. 1975. “On Some Proverbial Verses.” Proverbium, no. 25:
979–982.
Dundes, Alan. 1966. “Here I Sit—A Study of American Latrinalia.” The Kroeber Anthropological Society Papers, no. 34: 91–105.
Gallacher, Stuart A. 1949. “Franklin’s Way to Wealth: A Florilegium of Proverbs and
Wise Sayings.” Journal of English and Germanic Philology 48: 229–251.
Mato, Daniel. 1994. “Clothed in Symbols: Wearing Proverbs.” Passages: A Chronicle
of the Humanities 7: 4–5, 9, 11–12.
McKenna, Kevin J. 1996. “Proverbs and Perestroika: An Analysis of Pravda Headlines, 1988–1991.” Proverbium 13: 215–233.
Meister, Charles W. 1952–1953. “Franklin as a Proverb Stylist.” American Literature
24: 157–166.
Mieder, Barbara and Wolfgang. 1977. “Tradition and Innovation: Proverbs in Advertising.” Journal of Popular Culture 11: 308–319; also in Mieder and Dundes
1981 (1994): 309–322.
Mieder, Wolfgang. 1971. “‘Behold the Proverbs of a People’: A Florilegium of
Proverbs in Carl Sandburg’s Poem Good Morning, America.” Southern Folklore
Quarterly 35: 160–168.
———. 1980. “A Sampler of Anglo-American Proverb Poetry.” Folklore Forum 13:
39–53.
———. 1988. “Proverbs in American Popular Songs.” Proverbium 5: 85–101.
———. 1990. “‘A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words’: From Advertising Slogan to
American Proverb.” Southern Folklore 40: 207–225; also in Mieder 1993:
135–151.
———. 1993a. “‘Early to Bed and Early to Rise’: From Proverb to Benjamin
Franklin and Back.” In Proverbs Are Never Out of Season: Popular Wisdom in the
Modern Age, by W. Mieder, 98–134. New York: Oxford University Press; also in
Mieder 2000b: 69–108.
———. 1993b. “‘The Grass Is Always Greener on the Other Side of the Fence’: An
American Proverb of Discontent.” Proverbium 10: 151–184, also in Mieder 1994:
515–542.
———. 1995. “‘Make Hell While the Sun Shines’: Proverbial Rhetoric in Winston
Churchill’s The Second World War.” Folklore (London) 106: 57–69; also in Mieder
1997: 39–66 and 200–206 (notes).
———. 1998. “‘Conventional Phrases Are a Sort of Fireworks’: Charles Dickens’s
Proverbial Language.” Proverbium 15: 179–199; also considerably longer in
Mieder 2000b: 145–170.
———. 1999. “‘Man Is a Wolf to Man’: Proverbial Dialectics in the Works of Bertolt
Brecht.” Proverbium 16: 247–277; also in Mieder 2000b: 237–264.
———. 2000a. “‘A Man of Fashion Never Has Recourse to Proverbs’: Lord Chesterfield’s Tilting at Proverbial Windmills.” Folklore 111: 23–42; also in Mieder
2000b: 35–68.
256
Proverbs
———. 2000b. “‘Behind the Clouds the Sun Is Shining’: Abraham Lincoln’s Proverbial Fight Against Slavery.” In A voz popular: Estudos de ethnolinguística, ed. by
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Oledzki, Jacek. 1979. “On Some Maxims [Proverbs] on African Cars.” Africana Bulletin 28: 29–35.
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Tóthné Litovkina, Anna. 1999. “If You Are not Interested in Being Healthy, Wealthy
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Williams, Fionnuala. 1991. “‘To Kill Two Birds with One Stone’: Variants in a War
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Bibliography
This bibliography is divided into seven sections on major book-length studies and
comprehensive collections that have appeared for the most part in the English language. Included are sections on Bibliographies, Proverb Journals, Major Proverb Studies, Multilingual Proverb Collections, Bilingual Proverb Collections [with English as
the target language], Anglo-American Proverb Collections, and Regional and Thematic Proverb Collections. Additional bibliographical references from journal articles
or essay volumes are cited at the end of the four major sections of this book. For the
vast international proverb scholarship in numerous languages see above all Wolfgang
Mieder, International Proverb Scholarship: An Annotated Bibliography, 4 vols. (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1982, 1990, 1993; and New York: Peter Lang, 2001).
BIBLIOGRAPHIES
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De Caro, Francis A., and William K. McNeil. 1971. American Proverb Literature: A
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Clichés: A Bibliography of Explanatory Essays Which Appeared in “Notes and
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———. 1984–present. “International Bibliography of New and Reprinted Proverb
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———. 1984–present. “International Proverb Scholarship: An Updated Bibliography.” Annual bibliography in: Proverbium: Yearbook of International Proverb
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———. 1994. African Proverb Scholarship: An Annotated Bibliography. Colorado
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Mieder, Wolfgang, and George B. Bryan. 1996. Proverbs in World Literature: A Bibliography. New York: Peter Lang.
Mieder, Wolfgang, and Janet Sobieski. 1998. Proverb Iconography: An International
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———. 2003. Proverbs and the Social Sciences: An Annotated International Bibliography. Baltmannsweiler, Germany: Schneider Verlag Hohengehren.
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PROVERB JOURNALS
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Southern Illinois University Press.
Bertram, Anne, and Richard A. Spears. 1996. Dictionary of Folksy, Regional, and
Rural Sayings. Lincolnwood, Ill.: National Textbook Company.
Blue, John. 1982. Hoosier Tales and Proverbs. Rensselaer, Ind.: J.S. Blue.
Brunvand, Jan Harold. 1961. A Dictionary of English Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases
from Books Published by Indiana Authors before 1890. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Cassidy, Frederic G., and Joan Houston Hall. 1985–. Dictionary of American Regional English. 4 vols. to date. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Cobos, Rubén. 1973. Southwestern Spanish Proverbs. Cerrillos, N. Mex.: San Marcos
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Corum, Ann Kondo. 1985. Folk Wisdom from Hawaii or Don’t Take Bananas on a
Boat. Honolulu, Hawaii: Bess Press.
Dunwoody, H.H.C. 1883. Weather Proverbs. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office.
Fogel, Edwin Miller. 1929 (1995, 1995). Proverbs of the Pennsylvania Germans. Lancaster, Pa.: Pennsylvania-German Society; repr. ed. by Wolfgang Mieder. Bern:
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Hendrickson, Robert. 1992. Whistlin’ Dixie: A Dictionary of Southern Expressions.
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———. 1994. Happy Trails: A Dictionary of Western Expressions. New York: Facts on
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———. 1996. Yankee Talk: A Dictionary of New England Expressions. New York:
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———. 1997. Mountain Range: A Dictionary of Expressions from Appalachia to the
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———. 1998. New Yawk Tawk: A Dictionary of New York City Expressions. New York:
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———. 1998. Verdrehte Weisheiten: Antisprichwörter aus Literatur und Medien. Wiesbaden, Germany: Quelle & Meyer.
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Duke University Press (proverbs on pp. 329–501).
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Web Resources
While it is possible to use the Internet to locate small collections of proverbs
or references to individual proverbs by way of various databases, there is but
one major Web site dedicated to proverbs as such:
www.deproverbio.com
The following list includes a few additional Web sites that are of some use:
www.manythings.org/proverbs
www.creativeproverbs.com
www.afriprov.org
279
Glossary
As much as possible this book has been written free of theoretical jargon. Nevertheless, this short glossary is provided to assist with major terms and concepts that are not part of everyday parlance.
alliteration a sequence of words beginning with the same sound.
anthropomorphize attribute human characteristics to animals, plants, or material
objects
anti-proverb an intentionally changed (twisted, parodied) proverb with a new meaning.
apocryphal of doubtful authorship or authenticity.
archetype the original pattern or form (prototype) on which something is modeled.
blason populaire French term for stereotype or slur.
bona fide Latin for true or authentic (without fraud).
cognition the act or process of knowing; perception.
collocation the usual co-occurrence of a certain sequence of words.
demography the science of social statistics; statistical research using questionnaires.
demoscopy the science of studying the views and opinions of people.
diachronic the historical analysis of changes and developments.
ellipsis the omission of parts of a sentence for poetic emphasis or word economy.
emblem an allegorical illustration, often with a motto supplemental to the visual
image.
empiricism the science of studying matters by way of experiment or experience.
etiology the study of the cause or origin of something.
fixity the state of being stable or permanent.
hetero-situativity appearance or use in different contexts (also hetero-situationality).
hyperbole an emphatic exaggeration.
iconography the study of the subject matter and its meaning in the visual arts.
indirection the act of communicating figuratively or metaphorically.
281
282
Glossary
intertextuality the integration of a short text (quotation) in a larger text.
introductory formula a statement that identifies and draws attention to a particular utterance.
leitmotif something that is repeated throughout a piece of music or writing.
lingua franca any language that is widely used as a means of communication among
speakers of other languages, for example, Latin in the Middle Ages or English today.
loan translation the direct translation of a word or expression and its acceptance
from one language into another.
mentality the shared worldview of a group of people.
metaphor a figurative expression in which something is described in terms usually
associated with something else.
misericord a wooden carving in the choir stalls in medieval churches depicting religious or secular themes.
modus operandi Latin for mode (way) of operating or working.
paradigmatic a set of forms (patterns), all of which contain a particular element;
also the contrasting relationship between words (signs) of sentences.
paremia the Greek word for the Latin proverbium (proverb).
paremiography the collecting of proverbs and their arrangement into collections
or dictionaries.
paremiology the study of proverbs.
phraseography the collecting of fixed phrases and their arrangement into collections or dictionaries.
phraseological unit any fixed and repeated phrase.
phraseologism any fixed and repeated phrase.
phraseology the study of fixed phrases (proverbs, proverbial expressions, proverbial
comparisons, twin formulas, idioms, quotations, clichés, etc.).
poly-functionality having many (multiple) functions.
polyglot multilingual, knowing or containing many languages.
poly-semanticity having many (multiple) meanings.
pragmatics the branch of linguistics dealing with the factors influencing a person’s
choice of language (words, expressions, dialect, etc.).
proverbiality having the necessary characteristics of a proverb, that is, traditionality,
currency, and numerous structural and poetic markers.
semantics the study of meaning of words, expressions, and so on.
semiotics the study of signs and symbols as found in human communication.
sign a feature of language or behavior that conveys meaning as used conventionally
in a linguistic and social system.
simple forms old (oral), (near) universal, short, structured, and repeated text-types,
for example, myths, legends, folktales, jokes, proverbs, riddles, chants, charms,
blessings, curses, oaths, insults, toasts, tongue-twisters, greetings, ballads, counting-out rhymes, and so on.
speech play any intentional humorous, ironical, or satirical manipulation of language.
Glossary
283
synchronic the study of language at a particular point in time.
syntagmatic the linear relationship of various words (signs) in a sentence.
terminus a quo Latin for the end from which, beginning, starting point.
tour de force French for a particularly adroit stylistic technique.
traditionality having achieved the status of being known and used over a period of
time, usually in variants and different contexts.
ubiquity the state or capacity of being everywhere, omnipresence.
wisdom literature the early, even preliterate, didactic literature that is part of the
moral instruction of the world’s religions.
worldview the view and understanding of one’s surroundings, the shared mentality
of a group of people.
Index
Names of scholars cited in parentheses within the text, in the bibliographies of the
four chapters, and the major bibliography at the end of the book are not listed in
the name index. The subject index contains major areas of research, concepts, genres, terms, themes, and topics. The proverbs in the proverb index are listed by their
key words.
Names
Babcock, Barbara A., 143
Bailey, Pearl, 233
Barber, Joseph, 75
Barclay, Alexander, 37
Barker, Addison 71
Barnard, Fred R., 81–83, 86, 88, 245
Barnes-Harden, Alene, 113
Basler, Roy P., 185
Baur, Rupprecht S., 119
Bayles, James C., 71
Beatles (The), 153
Beecher, Henry Ward, 146
Beitel, Dinara, 141
Ben-Amos, Dan, 136
Bernstein, Ignaz, 56
Bilgrav, Jens Aage Stabell, 19
Blake, William, 162
Abadi, Michael C., 147
Abrahams, Roger D., 143
Achebe, Chinua, 143
Adams, Abigail, 41
Adams, John, 40, 139
Ade, George, 176
Adéèkó, Adélékè, 143
Albjerg, Victor, 204
Ambrose, Stephen, 64
Anido, Naiade, 119
Apperson, G. L., 23
Arewa, E. Ojo, 134
Aristophanes, 10
Aristotle, xii, 2, 10, 35
Arora, Shirley L., 7, 108, 138
Arthurs, Jeffrey D., 145
Auden, W. H., 225
285
286
Bluhm, Lothar, 142
Boateng, Felix, 146
Bodenheim, Maxwell, 68
Bonser, Wilfrid, 120
Bosch, Hieronymus, 37, 148
Bowles, Camilla Parker, 58
Brackenridge, Henry, 70
Brandes, Stanley, 136–37
Brandt, Willy, 13
Brecht, Bertolt, 41–42, 161, 207–15
Breton, Nicholas, 48
Brezhnev, Leonid, 139
Briggs, Charles L., 134, 140
Brooks, Noah, 183
Brown, Dee, 61
Brown, Warren S., 145
Bruegel, Pieter, the Elder, 38, 148, 236
Bruegel, Pieter, the Younger, 148
Bryan, George B., 121, 143, 152, 189
Buchan, John, 67
Buridant, Claude, 119
Burke, Kenneth, 8, 133
Burns, Robert, 180
Burns, Vincent Godfrey, 225, 233–34
Bushui, Anatolii Mikhailovich, 120
Butler, Richard, 65
Byron, Lord, 180, 202
Caesar, Julius, 200
Calvez, Daniel, 143
Camerarius, Joachim, 39
Cantor, Aviva, 77
Carnes, Pack, 142
Carr, Joseph, 67
Carter, Angela, 152
Cary, Alice, 225–27
Catherine the Great, 143
Cauvin, Jean, 126
Cavanaugh, James Michael, 62
Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de, 143
Champion, Selwyn Gurney, 144
Chaucer, Geoffrey, 44, 46–47
Cher, 58, 153
Index
Chesterfield, Lord Philip Dormer Stanhope, 161–71
Chlosta, Christoph, 119, 127
Christie, Agatha, 143
Churchill, Winston S., 14, 51, 138,
161, 186, 198–207
Cicero, 10, 201–2
Clarke, John, 173
Clifton, Harry, 225, 228–29
Clinton, Bill, 58
Colombi, María Cecilia, 143
Columbus, Christopher, 61
Combet, Louis, 125
Conca, Maria, 126
Confucius, 82
Cooke, Eliza, 174
Cordry, Harold V., 19, 21
Cox, Henryk L., 19
Cram, David, 132
Curwen, Samuel, 174
Davies, Robertson, 176
Davis, Natalie Z., 135
Defoe, Daniel, 180
Deskis, Susan E., 143
De Vries, Peter, 56
Dickens, Charles, 15, 189–98
Dickinson, Emily, 225, 227–28
Diderot, Denis, 162
Dobrovol’skij, Dmitrij, 133
Donker, Marjorie, 143
Donne, John, 202
Douglass, Frederick, 143
Doyle, Charles C., 102
Dundes, Alan, xiv, 6, 54, 79, 119, 134,
138, 148
Ďurčo, Peter, 119
Dürer, Albrecht, 149
Durrell, John, 58
Dylan, Bob, 153, 225
Eberhard, Wolfram, xiv
Eberhart, Richard, 75
Index
Egan, Raymond B., 188, 225, 230–32
Eismann, Wolfgang, 132
Ek, Sven, 45
Ellis, Edward, 63
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 53, 145
Erasmus of Rotterdam, 10, 45, 117,
173
Eret, Dylan, 145
Euripides, 10
Ezejideaku, E. U. C., 28
Faessler, Shirley, 58
Fielding, Henry, 162
Finnegan, Ruth, 140
Fish, Robert L., 177
Fitzherbert, Anthony, 172
Fitzsimmons, Robert, 101
Flonta, Teodor, 118
Florio, John, 37
Fogel, Edwin, 53
Folsom, Steven, 153
Fontaine, Carole R., 144
Forgey, Benjamin, 78
Frank, Grace, 149
Franklin, Benjamin, 161–62, 171–80,
216–18
Frost, Robert, 72–74
Fuller, Thomas, 216
Gallacher, Stuart A., xiv, 4, 217
Gallagher, Charles, 59
Gallico, Paul, 66
Gibbs, Raymond W., 141
Gilbert, W. S., 152
Gillespie, Arthur, 224, 229
Gluski, Jerzy, 20
Goell, Yosef, 77
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 143, 162
Gorbachev, Mikhail, 139
Gorham, Doinald R., 141
Gossen, Gary H., 111
Goya, Francisco, 149
Green, Rayna, 62
287
Griffin, Albert Kirby, 144
Grigas, Kazys, 123
Grimm, Jacob, 27
Grimm, Wilhelm, 142
Grzybek, Peter, 127, 132
Guiterman, Arthur, 225, 230
Gump, Forrest, 152
Haase, Donald, 152
Habakkuk, 35, 40
Hamutyinei, M. A., 124
Hand, Wayland D., xiv
Harder, Kelsie B., 19, 23, 27,
80, 101
Hardie, Margaret, 100–102
Harnish, Robert M., 132
Harris, Joel Chandler, 112
Harris, Joseph, 127
Hartmann, Dietrich, 119
Hasan-Rokem, Galit, 136, 142
Hawn, Goldie, 58
Healey, Joseph, 124
Herbert, George, 50, 216
Hernadi, Paul, 140
Herzog, Brad, 254
Hesiod, 34
Hitler, Adolf, 138, 199–200, 205,
208, 211
Hobson, Martin, 228–29
Hoffman, Al, 233
Hoffman, W. J., 53
Hogarth, Catherine, 190
Holmes, Deborah, 147
Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 180
Homer, 10
Honeck, Richard P., 133, 142
Horace, 10
Howell, James, 173, 216
Hulme, F. Edward, xiv–xv, 125
Hutton, Paul Andrew, 63
Iscla, Luis, 19
Isselburg, Peter, 39
288
Jaime Gómez, José de, 121
Jaime Lorén, José María, 121
Jente, Richard, xiv, 100–102
Jordaens, Jacob, 149
Jordan, Michael, 60
Jordan, Neil, 152
Joyce, James, 87
Kennedy, John F., 139, 206–7
Kibler, Clare T., 133
King, Martin Luther, 146
Kingsbury, Stewart A., 16, 19, 23, 27,
80, 101
Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara,
8, 133
Klee, Paul, 149
Kohl, Helmut, 139
Koopmann, Helmut, 214
Krikmann, Arvo, 9, 123
Krzyzanowski, Julian, 122
Kunstmann, John G., xiv
Kuusi, Matti, 2, 16–19, 26, 118,
123–25
Larson, Gary, 152
Lau, Kimberly J., 131
Lauhakangas, Outi, 16, 125
Lawrence, D. H., 52
Lazarus, John, 19
Lengert, Joachim, 120
Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim, 162
Lévy, Isaac Jack, 136
Ley, Gerd de, 22
Lieber, Michael D., 133
Lincoln, Abraham, 139, 161, 180–89
Lionni, Leo, 43
Liver, Ricarda, 12, 19, 122
Logau, Friedrich von, 50
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 50
Lord, David, 171
Lowell, James Russell, 180
Lowie, Robert H., 110
Luther, Martin, 11–12, 146
Lydgate, John, 36
Index
Mann, Thomas, 14
Manning, Dick, 233
Marx, Groucho, 176
Massing, Jean Michel, 151
Mathesius, Johann, 52
Mayer, Hans, 213
McKelvie, Donald, 135
McKenna, Kevin J., 143, 147, 152
McKenzie, Alyce M., 140, 146
Meadow, Mark, 148
Mennemeier, Norbert, 214
Mertvago, Peter, 19
Mieder, Barbara, 151
Mieder, Wolfgang, 3, 4, 16, 19, 21, 23,
25, 27, 80, 101, 106, 119–21,
126–27, 135, 138–40, 142–44, 148,
150–53, 189, 237
Milner, George, 6
Miner, Dorothy, 149
Mitelli, Giuseppe Maria, 40
Mitterand, François, 139
Molière, Jean-Baptiste, 211
Moll, Otto, 120
Morison O., 109
Muldoon, Paul, 225, 235
Newcomb, Robert, 171, 173
Nierenberg, Jess, 150
Nippold, Marilyn A., 140
Norrick, Neal R., 7, 133
Nuessel, Frank, 147
Nussbaum, Stan, 124
Nwachukwu-Agbada, J. O. J., 135, 138
Nyembezi, Cyril L., 124, 134
Nzambi, Philippe Dinzolele, 145
Obelkevich, James, 135
Obeng, Samuel Gyasi, 140
O’Neill, Eugene, 14
Orkin, Martin, 147
Owomoyela, Oyekan, 124
Pachocinski, Ryszard, 19, 124
Paczolay, Gyula, 10–12, 123, 125
Index
Parker, A. A., 136
Parker, Theodore, 41
Penn, William, 40
Permiakov, Grigorii L’vovich, 2, 125,
127–28, 131
Perry, Theodore A., 144
Pfeffer, J. Alan, 143
Piirainen, Elisabeth, 119
Pineaux, Jacques, 125
Plangger, A. B., 124
Plato, 10
Plautus, 10
Plopper, Clifford Henry, 144
Porter, Henry, 44
Prahlad, Sw. Anand, 136
Raymond, Joseph, 139
Reagan, Ronald, 139
Rees, Nigel, 150
Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, Otto von, 138
Reynolds, Clark, 76
Reynolds, Mack, 68
Rinehart, Mary, 64
Roback, Abraham A., 138
Robbins, Anthony, 145
Rogers, Ezekiel, 70
Rogers, Tim B., 141
Röhrich, Lutz, 125, 135, 152
Rölleke, Heinz, 142
Ronesi, Lynne, 138
Roosevelt, Franklin D., 139, 200–201,
203
Roosevelt, Theodore, xiii, 64, 139
Rothstein, Robert A., 132
Russell, Lord John, 9
Saayman, Willem, 119
Sabban, Annette, 119
Sala, George Augustus, 192
Sandburg, Carl, 225
Sarv, Ingrid, 123
Schaeffer, Susan Fromberg, 224,
234–35
Scheven, Albert, 124
289
Schmidt, Paul Gerhard, 12, 121
Schulze-Busacker, Elisabeth, 143
Schwarz, Ilsa E., 140
Seidl, Helmut, 28
Seiler, Friedrich, 125
Seitel, Peter, 133
Sevilla Muñoz, Julia, 118, 126
Sextus Empiricus, 50
Shakespeare, William, 10, 39, 49, 83,
143, 147, 180–81
Shames, Priscilla, 61
Shaw, George Bernard, 51, 67
Shepherd, William, 63
Sheridan, Philip, 62–64
Silverman-Weinreich, Beatrice, 132
Simpson, John A., 102, 106
Singer, Samuel, 12, 19, 122
Slavitt, David R., 236
Smith, William George, 23
Sobieski, Janet, 121, 140, 148
Sophocles, 10
Souster, Raymond, 74
Speroni, Charles, xiv
Stalin, Joseph, 205
Stanciu, Dumitru, 146
Stanhope, Philip Dormer, 161–71
Stanhope, Philip, 163–71
St. Basil, 35
Steen, Francis, 140
Stevenson, Burton, 80
Stibbe, Claudia A., 148
Strauss, Emanuel, 10, 19
Suard, François, 119
Sullivan, Margaret A., 148
Sullivan, Sir Arthur, 152
Sweterlitsch, Richard, 142, 151
Swift, Jonathan, 162
Swirko, Stanislaw, 122
Szemerkényi, Agnes, 126
Takeda, Katsuaki, 126
Taylor, Archer, xiv–xv, 2–3, 23, 60,
126–27, 162
Templeton, John Marks, 145
290
Teniers II, David, 149
Terence, 10
Thatcher, Margaret, 139
Thompson, John Mark, 144
Thurber, James, 176
Tilley, Morris Palmer, 23, 122
Titelman, Gregory, 23
Tóthné Litovkina, Anna, 147, 151
Trench, Richard Chenevix,
xiv–xv, 125
Trovato, Salvatore C., 119
Truman, Harry S., 51, 139, 180
Turgenev, Ivan, 79
Twain, Mark, 175, 176
Uhden, Linda D., 140
Vallini, Cristina, 119
Van Lancker, Diana, 141
Varro, 35
Vizinczey, Stephen, 179
Voigt, Vilmos, 118
Voltaire, François Marie, 162
Walther, Hans, 12, 121
Wander, Karl Friedrich Wilhelm, 125
Wanjohi, Gerald J., 145
Index
Waubageshig, 61
Weidhorn, Manfred, 199, 203
Westermann, Claus, 144
Westermarck, Edward, 134, 140
Whaley, Bryan B., 141
White, A., 51
Whiting, Bartlett Jere, xiv, 2–3, 19, 23,
80, 122, 127, 142
Whiting, Richard A., 188, 225, 230–32
Williams, Derek A., 136
Williams, Roger, 40
Wilson, Charles Erwin, 13
Wilson, F. P., 23
Winick, Stephen D., 5,
137, 152
Winthrop, John, 70
Winton, Alan P., 144
Wirrer, Jan, 119
Wycliffe, John, 36
Yankah, Kwesi, 134
Yoo, Young H., 124
Yurtbasi, Metin, 19
Yusuf, Yisa Kehinde, 28
Zholkovskii, Aleksandr, 133
Zumwalt, Rosemary Lévy, 136
Subjects
Abstraction, 140
Adaptability, 51, 65
Advertisement, 42, 81–83, 85, 87,
148, 150, 162, 177, 244–45, 251
Advertising, 81–84, 86–88, 151,
244–45, 250
Advice, 140, 167
African, 34, 88–89, 112–14, 119,
123–24, 135–36, 138, 140, 143,
145–46
African American, 34, 112–14, 136,
138
Alienation, 209, 210, 214–15
Alliteration, 7, 14, 132, 244
Allusion, 128, 177, 195–96, 225
Almanac, 171–74, 180, 216–18
Ambiguity, 8–9, 33, 69, 73, 133
American, 13, 23, 33–34, 53, 61–62,
67–69, 81–82, 87, 88, 100, 101–14,
122, 129–31, 134, 136, 138–39,
143, 174, 188, 225
Analogy, 133, 199
Animal, 28, 119
Anonymity, 180
Anthropology, 110–11, 119, 134, 136,
140
Index
Anti-proverb, 28, 150–53, 162, 179,
207, 212, 245, 251
Antiquity, 10–11, 34–35, 100, 137
Anti-Semitism, 138–39, 199, 211
Aptitude, 141
Arabic, 89–90, 124
Archetype, 17
Asian, 124, 145
Attitude, 137, 140–41
Authority, 15, 82, 146, 183, 244
Ballad, 142
Baltic, 123
Behavior, 140
Bible, 7, 11, 35–36, 52, 100, 137,
144–46, 151, 181–83, 189, 205,
210–13, 216, 244
Bibliography, xii, xv, 118–21
Blason populaire, 126, 138
Broadsheet, 148
Bumper sticker, 162, 251
Caricature, 42, 148, 162, 236–37
Cartoon, 42, 148, 152, 162, 236–37
Censorship, 16
Children, 147
Chinese, 90–91, 137–38, 144
Chinese American, 138
Classification, 16–20, 22, 122
Cliché, 14
Code, xii
Cognition, 140–42, 145
Collection, xii–xiii, 16, 19–23, 25–27,
60, 88, 101, 106, 120–21, 123–25,
128, 216
Comic strip, 83, 148, 152, 162,
236–37
Comment, 6
Common denominator, 139
Common sense, xii, 4, 112, 161, 163,
171, 174, 183, 218
Communication, xi, 1, 11, 28, 73–74,
79–80, 85, 88, 108, 128, 133–34,
291
139–40, 142, 145, 147, 150,
152–53, 161, 171, 198, 245, 250
Community, 140
Comprehension, 133, 141–42, 145
Computer, 18, 56–57, 60, 124, 131,
178
Content, 137
Context, 8–9, 49, 51, 133–34, 136,
140, 144, 161–62, 186, 209
Contradiction, 1, 134, 250
Credibility, 82
Crow, 110–11
Cultural literacy, 84, 128, 150, 180
Culture, xii, xv, 8, 13, 34, 79–80, 88,
103, 108–9, 119, 125, 132, 134–37,
140, 143, 145, 147, 150–53, 168,
245
Currency, xii, 4, 11, 16, 37, 54, 71, 80,
106, 131
Database, 18–19, 56–57, 60, 102, 121,
131
De Proverbio, 118
Definition, xiv, 2–6, 9, 118, 137
Democracy, 139
Didacticism, 147, 167, 190, 224
Disambiguation, 133
Dissemination, 9–10, 24, 53, 60, 119,
135, 245
Distribution, 10
Dutch, 148–49
Education, 146–47, 165
Ellipsis, 7, 44, 132, 244
Emblem, 148
Empiricism, 127–28, 153
English, 100–102, 106, 122, 125,
128–31, 135, 143, 147, 152, 199,
206–7
Equivalent, 20–21, 34, 53–54
Estonian, 123
Ethics, 112, 142, 161, 168, 173–75,
178, 187, 218
292
Ethnicity, 34, 108, 120, 126, 136, 138,
140
Ethnocentrism, 138
European, 10–12, 36, 44, 123, 128,
214
Europeanization, 13
Experience, 140
Extinction, xi
Fable, 142, 146
Fairy tale, 142
Family, 112, 136
Fatalism, 41, 43, 200
Feminism, 28
Field research, 60, 127, 140, 144
Film, 151–52
Finnish, 123, 137
Fixity, 7, 28
Folk, 3–5, 9, 14–15, 25, 126, 128,
134, 139, 142, 146, 180, 192, 218
Folklore, 1, 8–9, 25, 54–56, 60,
86–87, 119, 133, 135–38, 140, 142,
144, 163, 204
Folklore archive, 54–56, 60
Folk narrative, 126, 128, 142
Folk speech, 14
Folk tale, 142, 146
Foreign language, 21–22, 103, 128,
146–47, 170
Form, 132
Formula, 13–14, 57, 65, 71, 84–86,
125, 132, 134, 144, 192, 202
French, 91–92, 135, 143, 149, 170
Frequency, 1, 3, 128, 131, 143
Function, 33, 133–34, 136, 140,
143–44, 161
Gender, 136, 140, 179
Generalization, 5, 34, 68, 137
Genre, xii–xiii, 1, 13, 26, 125, 142
German, 33, 45, 52–54, 92–93, 123,
125, 137, 143, 152
Globality, 9, 11
Index
Golden rule, 145, 182
Gold weight, 149
Graffiti, xii, 150, 162, 251
Grammar, 132
Greek, 34, 138
Greeting card, 236
Headline, 244, 250–51
Hetero-situativity, 9, 132
History, 33, 60, 119, 135–38, 172
Humor, 14–16, 28, 136, 150, 153,
162, 175, 178, 182–83, 190,
191–95, 208–9, 236–37, 251
Hyperbole, 7
Iconography, 37–40, 42–43, 121,
148–50
Identification, 143–44
Idiom, 133, 194
Imagery, 14, 79–80, 187, 194
Immigrant, 53–55, 100, 107–8, 225
Indefiniteness, 9
Indian, 93–94, 124
Indirection, 8, 48, 74, 139–40, 142,
226
Informant, 55–56, 136
Innovation, 28, 150–51, 162, 198,
203, 225, 244–45, 250–51
Intelligence, 140–41
Internationalization, 65
Interpretation, 143–44
Intertextuality, 137, 152
Introductory formula, 57, 71, 132,
134, 144, 192
Irish, 94–95
Italian, 95–96
Japanese, 96–97
Joke, 142
Journalism, 139, 250
Key word, 21–22, 25
Knowledge, 146
Index
293
Language acquisition, 147–48
Latin, 10, 12, 35–36, 44, 53, 121–22,
147, 169, 172–73, 201
Law, 27, 33, 43–45, 126
Leitmotif, 165, 168–69, 200, 202–3,
214, 225
Linguistics, 119, 131–33, 137, 145
Literature, 39–40, 44, 46–47, 60,
72–75, 119, 121, 143–45, 207
Lithuanian, 123
Loan translation, 21, 54, 103, 126
Logic, 132
Love, 28
Morality, 3, 15, 145, 147, 162, 171,
187
Mores, 251
Music, 151–53
Marker, 4, 6–7, 9, 71, 244
Mass media, 9, 13, 42, 56–57, 71, 79,
83, 103, 119, 131, 138, 150–53,
162, 245, 250
Maxim, xii
Mayan, 111
Meaning, 4, 8, 33, 133–36, 142, 209,
250
Medicine, 27–28, 126, 145, 174, 176
Memorability, 135, 244
Memorization, 145
Memory, 140, 142
Mentality, 135, 137
Metaphor, 8–10, 14, 34, 36, 43, 52,
69, 109, 126, 133, 139, 141–42,
148, 186–87, 191, 195, 209, 226,
237
Meteorology, 26–27
Meter, 126
Mexican American, 107–8, 134
Middle Ages, 10, 12, 35–36, 43, 53,
100, 121–22, 137, 143, 147
Middle East, 124
Mill, 50
Miller, 43
Minority, 34, 67, 69
Misericord, 148–49, 236
Misogyny, 28, 49, 119, 121, 136
Modernity, 162, 245
Obscenity, 126, 251
Orality, 9, 71, 74, 83, 87, 108–9, 128,
131, 134–35, 146, 163, 166
Origin, 9–10, 24, 33, 60, 100–102,
119, 126–27, 135, 142, 172, 217,
250
National character, 34, 137–38
Nationality, 34, 120, 126
National Socialism, 138–39, 199, 208
Native American, 34, 61–62, 67–69,
108–11, 114
Netherlandish Proverbs, 148–49, 236
Neurology, 141
Nonsense, 251
Painting, 148–49, 236
Paradox, 7
Parallelism, 7, 126, 132, 244
Paremia, 118
Paremiography, xii–xiii, 2, 117, 120,
123, 125, 127–28
Paremiological minimum, 127–28,
131, 147
Paremiology, xii–xiii, 5, 117–20,
125–27, 133, 141, 153
Parody, 144, 150, 151, 162, 176,
179–80
Pattern, 6, 17, 70
Pedagogy, 145–47, 165
Pennsylvania German, 53–54
Perception, 140
Performance, 132–34, 140
Personification, 7, 126
Persuasion, 49, 187
Philology, 119, 135
Philosophy, 145, 163, 171
Phraseography, xiii
294
Phraseological unit, xiii, 14, 125, 128,
133, 147
Phraseologism, xiii, 14
Phraseology, xiii, 118–19, 125,
132–33, 181
Plant, 28
Poem, 72–75, 224–25
Poetics, 132
Politics, 40–41, 51, 75–78, 137–38,
152, 198, 204, 206, 236–37,
250–51
Poly-functionality, 9, 132
Poly-semanticity, 9, 62, 132
Popular culture, 13, 103, 150–53
Popularity, 37, 88
Poor Richard’s Almanack, 171–74, 180,
216–18
Pragmatics, 132, 134
Pragmatism, 205
Preacher, 146
Prejudice, 138
Profession, xi, 33, 43, 48, 137
Propaganda, 138, 211
Proverbial comparison, xii, 13–14,
125–26, 143, 189
Proverbial exaggeration, 14
Proverbial expression, xii, 13, 7
9, 102, 110–11, 125–26, 133,
135, 142–43, 152, 189, 194,
197–98, 225
Proverbial interrogative, xii
Proverbiality, 4–7, 127
Proverbium, xiii, 118, 120–21
Proverb pair, 134, 250
Proverbs test, 141
Proverb type, 2, 16–18, 20, 123,
125–26
Psychiatry, 139–41
Psycholinguistics, 141–42, 145
Psychology, 119, 139–42, 145
Pun, 28, 126, 244
Quotation, xii–xiii, 132–33, 181
Index
Rationalization, 49
Regeneration, 251
Region, 25–26, 34, 102, 106–8
Religion, 119–21, 144–46
Repertoire, xi, 134, 136
Rhetoric, 7, 138, 141, 145, 161, 164,
182, 185–86, 191–93, 197–200,
203, 206
Rhyme, 7, 14, 126, 132, 244
Riddle, 142
Russian, 97–98, 128, 143, 147, 152
Sanskrit, 35
Scatology, 16, 113, 251
Schizophrenia, 140–41
Science, 145
Sea, 28, 201
Selection, 137
Self-help book, 145–46
Semantics, 125, 132–33
Semiotics, 8, 118, 125, 131–33
Sententious remark, xii
Sermon, 146, 182
Sexuality, 16, 113, 170, 237, 251
Sign, xii, 8, 132, 134, 165
Simple form, 132
Slavery, 112
Slogan, xii–xiii, 13, 28, 62, 65, 82,
86–88, 141, 150–51, 244–45,
250–51
Slur, 61, 67, 138
Socialization, 140
Society, 8, 17, 41, 52, 80, 84, 87–88,
127, 133–37, 140, 146, 163, 165,
191, 194, 199, 236–37, 245, 251
Sociology, 119, 121, 139–40
Song, 58, 188, 213, 224–25
Spanish, 98–99, 107–8, 136, 138, 143,
169
Speech act, 132–34
Speech play, 7, 28
Stereotype, 28, 33, 47–48, 52, 60, 62,
65, 69, 119–20, 126, 137–39
Index
Strategy, xiv, 1, 4, 8, 132, 134, 140,
162, 190, 204–5, 244
Structure, 2, 6–7, 9–10, 13, 15, 26,
28, 34, 65, 70, 79–80, 85–86, 118,
125, 132, 140, 162, 195, 202, 244,
251
Style, 7, 9, 126, 132, 140
Sumerian, xii, 117
Superstition, 26–27, 133
Survival, 52
Swedish, 45
Syntax, 132
T-shirt, 148, 150, 162, 251
Tall tale, 142
Talmud, 35
Tapestry, 148–49
Teaching, 146–47
Television, 151
Texas, 34, 106–7
Theme, 21–22, 25
Therapy, 141, 145
Topic, 6
Tradition, 28, 150–51, 162, 198, 225,
244–45, 250–51
Traditionality, 4–6
Translation, 10–11, 21–22, 53–54, 87,
103, 126, 147
Translator, 12, 20, 22
Transmission, 140
Trivialization, 65
Truism, 2, 134
Truth, 2–4, 134, 139, 145, 244–45
295
Tsimshian, 109–10
Twin formula, xii, 13–14, 125, 202
Tzotzil, 111
Ubiquity, 1, 153, 250
Universal, 17–18, 20
Universality, 145
Validity, 140
Variant, 9, 12, 25, 28, 44, 52, 60, 63,
66–67, 71, 75, 85, 100–102, 106,
135, 163, 179, 188
Variation, 28, 88, 126, 195
Vermont, 25–26, 34, 106–7
Visualization, 79–80
Vocabulary, 10
Weather, 26–27, 121
Wellerism, xii, 15–16, 125–26,
142–43, 163–64, 189, 193–94, 197
Wisdom, xi, xv, 1, 3–5, 8, 15, 21, 28,
34, 69, 88, 109, 112, 134, 136,
139–40, 142, 144–46, 153, 161–62,
178–80, 192, 205, 207, 209, 211,
216, 218, 225, 245, 250
Wisdom literature, 144–45
Women, 28, 120
Woodcut, 148–50, 236
World-upside-down, 149
Worldview, 34, 62–63, 80, 88, 121,
131, 135, 137, 153, 218
Yiddish, 55–56, 99–100, 132
Proverbs
A, 92, 209
Absence, 1, 129, 151, 224, 229, 248
Accident, 194
Action, 253
Adam, 135
Admiration, 98
Advertise, 101, 103
Advice, 91, 93, 99, 108, 224
Age, 92, 99, 103, 223
Alcohol, 103
Ambition, 107
Amor, 21
296
Anarchy, 22
Anchor, 94
Angry, 14
Antelope, 88
Anvil, 92
Apfel, 33, 52
Appel, 53
Apple, 26–27, 33, 52–60, 129, 151,
153, 238
April, 27, 243
Arm, 90
Ask, 89
Ass, 89
Atheist, 103
Ax, 88
Baby, 92, 101–2, 135
Backyard, 112
Bag, 223
Baker, 91
Ball, 16
Baloney, 103
Bamboo sprout, 90
Bargain, 95
Barn, 94
Bastard, 107
Bean, 88
Bear, 97
Beard, 22, 95
Beat, 103
Beauty, 91–92, 94–96, 98, 100, 103,
129
Bed, 94, 98, 129, 171–80, 196–97,
219, 223
Bee, 89
Been, 103, 249
Beetle, 89
Beggar, 129, 208
Beginning, 70
Belly, 93
Berry, 103, 112–13
Best, 203
Bigger, 103
Index
Bird, xii, 7–8, 46, 89, 93, 96, 129,
134–35, 137, 179, 192, 210, 225,
227, 230, 235–38
Birth, 89
Bite, 94
Bitten, 7, 100
Bitter, 97
Black, 13, 113
Blind, 236
Block, 13
Blood, 201–2, 253
Boat, 90, 201, 222
Bolt, 235
Bone, 90
Book, 13, 22, 89–90, 103, 129
Borrow, 229
Borrowing, 222
Boy, 103, 131
Branch, 97
Bread, 88, 91, 97, 205
Brevity, 10, 92
Bride, 22
Bridge, 103, 129
Broke, 103
Brook, 94
Broom, 12, 100, 129, 235, 250
Brother, 89
Bull, 93
Burro, 111
Business, 15, 129, 174, 219–20
Busy, xii, 13
Butter, 95
Buy, 221
Bygones, 188, 203
Cackle, 106
Cage, 98
Cake, 96, 129, 235
Calendar, 99
Calf, 93
Call, 97
Calligrapher, 96
Calling, 219
Index
Calm, 52
Camel, 7, 89, 211
Camera, 5, 103
Candle, 17
Candy, 103
Canoe, 101, 103, 225, 228–29
Cantor, 99
Care, 220
Carriage-driver, 112
Cat, 7, 12, 26, 98, 107, 219, 230
Charity, 93
Cheap, 96
Cherry tree, 94, 96
Chicken, 8, 88, 129
Child, 24–25, 88, 97, 129, 224,
234–35
Children, 11, 89, 92, 95, 209
Chimney, 94, 223
Chip, 53, 103
Christmas, 209
Church, 7
Chutspeh, 99
City Hall, 5
Clear, 14
Clock, 107
Cloth, 98
Clothes, 12, 236
Cloud, 8, 27, 129, 180, 188
Coal, 13
Coat, 95
Cobbler, xi
Cock, 88
Cold, 27
Collar, 94
Come, 7, 27, 33, 43–52, 94, 129, 131,
194, 208, 211, 244
Company, 169
Conscience, 92, 95
Cook, 91, 129, 151, 236
Corde, 170
Corn, 25, 52
Cottontail, 110
Counsel, 224
297
Courtesy, 95
Covetous, 109
Cow, 89, 91, 94, 97, 106
Crab, 96
Creditor, 223
Crime, 103
Crocodile, 88
Crow, 12, 97, 112
Cruche, 170
Cry, 15
Curiosity, 103, 129, 240
Customer, 103
Dainties, 221
Day, xi, 22, 103, 222, 232
Dead, 7, 112
Death, 91, 94–95
Debt, 222
Deed, 7, 80, 203–4
Deer, 109
Deerskin, 110
Defense, 103
Depth, 103
Desire, 222
Diamond, 28, 103
Die, 200–201
Diligence, 92, 95, 219
Distance, 93, 229
Ditch, 112
Do, 11, 129, 145, 165, 168, 181–82
Doctor, 94
Dog, 8, 11, 88–89, 102, 112, 129,
148, 193, 204, 208, 230, 235, 241,
244, 250
Donkey, 89
Door, 91, 95, 98, 113
Dough, 91
Drainpipe, 90
Dream, 113
Dress, 91, 101, 113, 222
Drink, 103
Dropping, 220
Drum, 96
298
Drunk, 14, 69
Drunkard, 94, 97
Duck, 94
Dull, 195
Dust, xii, 96
Eagle, 93
Ear, 110
Eat, 90, 103, 112
Egg, 95, 97, 99, 103, 129, 185–86,
204
Eggplant, 96
Elephant, 88, 103
End, 129, 202, 205
English, 207
Enough, 91, 131
Err, 208
Estate, 221
Ethiopian, 151
Evil, 15, 139
Experience, 103, 151, 224
Eye, 6, 12, 27, 49–50, 96, 100, 104,
211, 220
Eyeglasses, 99
Face, 98, 108, 112
Fact, 104, 202
Fair, 7, 104, 252
Fall, 101
Family, 90, 220
Farm, 107
Fate, 90
Father, 6, 53, 54, 104, 129
Feast, 95
Fellow, 101, 104
Fence, 33, 69–78, 104
Field, 112
Figure, 104, 165
Finder, 27
Finger, 90
Fire, 98–99
Fish, 11, 33–43, 96–97, 104, 129,
138–39, 148, 211
Index
Fisherman, 97
Fit, 113
Flame, 95
Flattery, 104
Flea, 90
Flesh, 15, 37
Flour, 50
Flower, 88, 95
Fly, 90, 98
Folk, 112
Folly, 91
Fool, 28, 88, 98–99, 129, 221, 235
Fools’ hands, 92
Foot, 99, 166
Ford, 94, 97
Forest, 97, 235
Forger, 97
Forget, 113
Forgive, 7, 131
Fortune, 95
Fox, 219
Friend, 8–9, 22, 80, 88, 90, 95, 129,
203, 235
Friendship, 96
Frock, 102
Frog, 90, 93
Gain, 219
Game, 91, 104
Garbage, xi, 13, 104, 242
General, 96
Generation, 90
Generosity, 94
Get, 223, 236
Get away, 236
Gift horse, 8, 129, 243
Give, xii
Go, 104, 112–13, 169
Goat, 89, 94, 98
God, 218–19
Gold, 8, 12, 18, 100, 129, 203, 252
Good, 13
Goods, 90
Index
Goose, 230
Got, 7
Grass, 104, 129, 187–88, 225, 230–32
Gravy, 112
Grease, 92
Grist, 44, 51
Groat, 221
Grub, 213
Guest, 90, 98
Gut, 5, 104
Guy, 104
Hair, 21, 95, 97, 235
Hand, 11, 92–94, 100, 129–30, 219
Handsome, 13, 110
Hang, 192
Happy, 97
Haste, 7, 11, 100, 130
Have, 21
Having, 21
Hay, 27, 107, 130, 198, 206, 235
Head, 80, 89, 113, 130, 202, 235, 247
Heart, 7, 90, 96–99, 104
Hearth, 92
Heat, 104, 242
Hedge, 70
Helper, 110
Hen, 89, 101, 104
Herring, 95
Hesitate, 1, 130
Highway, 90
Hilt, 21
Hindsight, 104
Hire, 104
History, 131
Hog, 104
Home, 27, 99, 104
Homo, 214
Honesty, 8, 130, 145, 205, 211
Honey, 186
Honor, 93
Hoofbeat, 27
Hope, 91, 219, 251
299
Horn, 13
Horse, 8, 95, 99, 104, 129–30, 230,
235, 243
House, 95, 110
Human, 214
Hunger, 7, 89–90, 93, 95, 210, 219
Hunter, 18
Hurry, 20
Husband, 70
Ice, 202
Idleness, 92, 167, 210
Ignorance, 27
Indian, 33, 60–69
Industry, 104, 217, 219
Ingratitude, 92
Iron, 8, 12, 130, 193, 195–96, 205,
236
Itch, 98
Ivory, 90
Jack, 70, 92
Jealousy, 91, 98
Jewel, 96
Judge, 181–82
Justice, 93, 104
Key, 219
Kick, 107
Kitchen, 91, 221
Know, 95, 98, 113
Knowledge, 8, 209
Kürze, 10
Label, 91
Labor, 93, 220
Lady, 104
Lamb, 214
Lamp, 90
Land, 213, 236
Last, 92
Late, 130–31
Laugh, 80, 101, 130, 211
300
Law, 7
Laziness, 104, 171, 174, 217–19
Leak, 221
Learn, 250
Learning, 96–97, 191
Leopard, 89, 152
Lid, 91
Lie, 92, 211, 223
Life, 21–22, 90, 92, 99, 104, 152,
219–20
Lightning, 27
Like, 193
Linen, 99
Lip, 91
Little, 15, 221
Live, 14, 95, 130
Loaf, 92, 170, 193
Log, 92
Look, 1, 14, 107, 130, 225, 230
Love, 7, 11, 20, 89–90, 92–93,
96–100, 130
Lover, 98
Luck, 93, 95, 194
Lunch, 104
Mad, 14
Maid, 18
Man, xi–xii, 6, 100–101, 104, 107,
111, 163, 166, 189, 207, 211–15,
225, 233–34, 236, 246
Mansion, 95
Marriage, 99
Marry, 93, 98
Master, 70
Meal, 48, 222
Meal-tub, 222
Mearing, 95
Meat, 163–64, 245
Medicine, 91
Melon, 91, 98
Melon-seller, 91
Men, 14, 220–21
Mens, 169
Index
Might, 185
Milk, 13, 235
Mill, 44, 50–51, 92, 208
Miller, 47–50
Miller’s eye, 49–50
Millstone, 52
Mind, 101, 104, 145, 168
Minute, 220
Miser, 96
Miserly, 14
Misery, 130
Misfortune, 107, 210
Miss, 151
Moderation, 176
Mohammed, 90
Mole, 112
Moment, 80
Money, 6, 90–92, 96, 98–99, 104–5,
108, 113, 130, 153, 210, 221–23,
240
Monkey, 96, 113
Moonlight, 90
Morgenstunde, xii, 137, 210
Morning hour, xii, 93, 137, 210
Morsel, 97
Moscow, 97
Mother, 53–54
Mouse, 220
Mouth, 89, 107
Music, 93
Nail, 220, 235
Name, 93
Native, 89
Nature, xv
Needle, 13, 98
Neglect, 220
Neighbor, 70, 91, 96, 108,
145, 228
Nettle, 92
Nobody, 105, 151, 167
Nose, 221, 235
Nothing, 21
Index
Official, 91
Oil, 91
Ointment, 92
One, 113
Opinion, 16
Opportunity, 99, 241
Opposite, 134
Order, 93
Ordnung, 137
Oven, 92
Owe, 203
Owl, 93
Own, xii, 21
Owner, 89
Ox, 94
Pain, 141, 145
Pandora, 150
Paris, 92
Pas, 192
Passion, 96
Path, 89
Paul, 235
Pay, 113
Peace, 96–97
Pearl, 99
Pen, 98, 139, 247
Pence, 167
Penny, 80, 93, 113, 130, 205, 248
Penny-wise, 205
Pennyworth, 221
People, 96, 108, 139, 235
Person, 113
Peter, 235
Picture, 13, 33, 79–88, 105, 130, 245
Pig, 49, 91, 98
Pine needles, 110
Pipe, 194
Piper, 6
Pissed, 16, 105
Pit, 11
Pitcher, 12, 90, 100, 150, 170
Plain, 207
301
Play, 94
Pleasure, 220
Plough, 219–20
Ploughman, 222
Point, 194
Politics, 105
Poor, 6, 22
Porcupine, 110
Possess, 21
Possession, 21, 27
Post, 91
Pot, 7–8, 89, 94, 130, 233
Potato, 95
Power, 90
Practice, 7, 93, 130
Prevention, 8, 130
Pride, 222
Priest, 95
Prison, 17
Procrastination, 195
Profit, 91
Prop, 95
Prophet, 12
Prosperity, 99
Proud, 112
Proverb, 3–4
Punishment, 99
Purse, 96, 99
Put, 105
Quarrel, 94
Rabbi, 99
Rag, 14
Rain, 14, 26, 92, 111, 130, 191, 250,
254
Ram, 111
Rat, 89
Reason, 224
Reception, 94
Red, 7
Removes, 105, 171, 190, 217–18, 220
Repetition, 90
302
Rest, 93
Rice, 94
Right, 184–85
Ripe, 97
Rise, 174, 219
Rising, 97
River, 94, 235
Road, 12, 89–90, 99, 105, 111, 230,
244
Robin, 6, 107
Rock, 13
Rome, 8, 130, 235
Room, 105
Rooster, 93, 99, 108, 112
Rope, 89, 170
Rose, 12, 209
Row, 105, 225–27, 231–32
Ruble, 98
Rule, 105
Rust, 92, 107
Sabbath, 99
Sack, 89, 99, 216
Said, 130
Saint, 95–96, 99
Salt, 91, 99
Samovar, 98
Sap, 25
Say, 194
Scalp, 111
Schlemiel, 100
See, 81, 105
Seeing, 79, 87–88
Self-praise, 93
Servant, 220
Seven, 98
Sheep, 220
Ship, 105
Shirtsleeve, 105
Shit, 16, 105
Shoe, 1, 101, 130
Shop, 220
Short, 14
Index
Shoulder, 191
Shower, 27, 243
Shrimp, 97
Sight, 1, 130–31
Silence, 15, 80
Silk, 221
Sin, 96
Sink, 14
Skeleton, 197–98
Skill, 95
Skin, 91
Skunk, 105
Sky, 27, 235
Sled, 98
Sleep, 14, 27
Sleeping, 105, 171, 217, 219
Slip, 7, 94
Sloth, 105, 174, 217, 219
Slowly, 14
Sluggard, 179, 219
Small, 105
Smile, 80
Smoke, 11, 130, 235
Snail, 89
Snake, 89, 94
Snow, 110
Sock, 95
Soft, 14
Soil, 94
Solution, 105
Sow, 11
Spade, 138
Sparrow, 93
Speak, xiii, 91, 105
Spend, 14
Spick, 14
Spinner, 220
Spirit, 100
Spoon, 90, 99
Spring, 26
Squeal, 14
Stealing, 22
Steel, 107
Index
Step, 92, 192
Stick, 94
Stingy, 14
Stitch, 97, 100, 130, 202, 235
Stomach, 100
Stone, 108, 130, 192, 195, 223, 225,
230
Stool, 235
Straw, 190
Stream, 50, 207
Strike, 105
Stroke, 105, 113, 140, 151, 220, 246
Strong, 194
Study, 97
Stuff, 105
Stupid, 14
Succeed, 7, 105, 130, 145, 239
Success, 105
Sucker, 105
Sun, 12, 150, 180, 188, 223
Swallow, 11, 95
Sweat, 181–83
Sweet, 195
Swift, 14
Tail, 91, 94
Tailor, 98
Take, 21
Talk, 89, 105, 106, 111
Talker, 91
Talking, 99
Tango, 13, 105, 130, 139, 233
Taste, 15, 163, 193
Tear, 96
Teeth, 100
Tell, 169
Temper, 97
Tempest, 13
Thief, 90
Thing, 46, 105, 107, 244
Think, 93
Thistle, 99
Thought, 20
303
Thread, 98
Tickee, 105, 138
Tiger, 91, 97
Time, 93, 95–96, 99, 107–8, 130–31,
173, 193, 210, 219–20, 235
Tit, 14–15
Today, 219
Tomorrow, 130, 145, 168, 187, 195,
219
Tongue, 28, 97–100
Tortoise, 89
Tough, 105
Toy, 92
Track, 107
Trade, 93, 219
Train, 97
Trash, 20
Treasure, 97
Tree, 91, 93–94, 96, 220
Truth, 92, 96, 98, 100
Turn, 15, 235
Turtle, 111
Two, 105
Umbrella, 97
Unexpected, 210–11
Use, 106
Vanish, 14
Variety, 106
Venture, 7
Vermont, 25
Vessel, 100, 222, 235
Via, 12
Vice, 221, 223
Village, 95, 97
Vinegar, 96
Virtue, 8, 94, 166–67
Vulture, 89
Wagon, 106, 145
Wall, 11, 90
Want, 194, 220, 235
304
Wash, 151
Waste, 130, 249
Watch, 14
Water, 11, 49–50, 89, 91, 106, 110,
130, 230
Water lilies, 110
Way, 7
Wealthy, 221
Wedding, 100
Well, 90, 103, 222
Wheel, 8, 130
Wife, 70
Will, 6, 15, 130, 239, 244
Win, 106
Window, 95
Wine, 92–93, 208
Wisdom, 97
Wise, 9, 205
Index
Wits, 100, 220
Wolf, 18, 98, 214–15
Woman, 28
Women, 221
Wood, 235
Wool, 107
Word, 89, 91–92, 94, 96, 98–99, 113,
218
Work, 6, 11, 14, 94, 96, 190, 210
Workman, 220
World, 25, 90, 94, 96, 100, 107
Worm, 230
Worry, 100
Worth, 165
Wrong, 130
Young, 106
Youth, 92, 230
About the Author
WOLFGANG MIEDER is Professor of German and Folklore at the University of Vermont. His many books include A Dictionary of American Proverbs
(1992), Proverbs Are Never out of Season (1993), The Proverbial Winston S.
Churchill (Greenwood, 1995), The Politics of Proverbs (1997), and numerous
others. He is also the editor of Proverbium: Yearbook of International Proverb
Scholarship.