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 orally from generation to generation. Many scholars have
attempted to formulate the proverb definition, ranging from abstract formulations based
on symbolic logic to Archer Taylor’s almost proverbial statement that “an
incommunicable quality tells us this sentence is proverbial and that one is not” (Taylor
[1913] 1985:3). Two major ingredients of what constitutes proverbiality should be part of
any definition, but they cannot be ascertained from the proverb texts themselves: The
aspects of traditionality and currency will always have to be established before a
particular text can, in fact, be called a proverb. This situation is particularly acute when
the question arises whether such new formulaic statements like “garbage in, garbage out”
or “it takes two to tango” have reached a proverbial status in the United States. However,
some definite “markers” are helpful in identifying short sentences of wisdom or common
sense as folk proverbs. These markers are also instrumental in assuring the memorability
and recognizability of the texts as traditional wisdom. In addition to their fixed (and often
oppositional) structure, their relative shortness, and their use of metaphors, proverbs
usually exhibit at least some, if not all, of the following poetic or stylistic features:
alliteration: “Money makes the mare go”; rhyme: “Man proposes, God disposes”;
parallelism: “Easy come, easy go”; ellipsis: “Out of sight, out of mind”; personification:
“Misery loves company”; hyperbole: “It is easier for a camel to go through a needle’s
eye, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” (Matthew 19:24); and paradox:
“The nearer the church, the farther from God.”
While proverbs per se 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 but fragmentary metaphorical
phrases that must be integrated into a sentence. Proverbial expressions are usually verbal
phrases as, for example, “To pay through the nose” or “To put someone through the
wringer.” Proverbial comparisons can be divided into two major groups. The first follows
the structure of “as X as Y”—for example, “as black as a crow” and “as white as a sheet.”
The second group is based on a verbal comparison with “like”—for example, “to grin
like a Cheshire cat” and “to leak like a sieve.” Proverbial exaggerations describe the
extraordinary degree to which someone or something possesses a certain characteristic.
Many of them are based on the structural pattern “so…(that),” clearly illustrated in such
texts as “She is so thin you have to shake the sheets to find her” and “He is so narrowminded that he can see dirough a keyhole with both eyes.” Twin formulas, finally, are
traditional word pairs that are molded together by alliteration and/or rhyme—for
example, “slowly but surely” or “to go through thick and thin.” None of these proverbial
phrases (“phraseological units,” as linguists call them) contains any complete thought or
wisdom. They are proverbial in that they are traditional, metaphorical, and even more frequently used than true proverbs. While they add color and expressiveness to oral and
written communication, they cannot stand alone due to their fragmentary structure.
Nevertheless, much of what is described about proverbs below, such as their origin and
content, is also applicable to these subgenres.
Proverbs in actual use are verbal strategies for dealing with social situations. To
understand the meaning of proverbs in actual speech acts, they must be viewed as part of
the entire communicative performance. This is true for proverbs used in oral speech, but
also in their frequent employment in literary works, the mass media, advertising, popular
songs, cartoons, and the like. Only the analysis of the use and function of proverbs within
particular contexts will determine their specific meanings. In fact, proverbs in collections
are almost meaningless or dead, but they become significant and alive once they are
employed as a strategic statement that carries the weight of traditional wisdom. Proverbs
thus exhibit different semantic possibilities due to their various functions and situations.
Yet, it is exactly this intangible nature of proverbs that leads to their continued and
effective use in all modes of communication.
It is customary to group proverbs according to their content, some major groups being
legal proverbs, medical proverbs, and weather proverbs. It should be noted, however, that
while a text like “Make hay while the sun shines” is, indeed, a metaphorical proverb,
such commonly heard sayings like “Red sky at night, sailor’s delight” are merely
superstitious weather signs couched in proverbial language. Other groups that are based
just on content would include all of the proverbs dealing with the body, love, work,
friendship, and death. Such groupings have their limitations, for while the proverb “Two
heads are better than one” clearly deals with the body, it might actually serve as a
metaphorical statement to express the fact that two people working together (pooing their
intelligence) might be more successful than an individual doing things alone.
Based on structural and semiotic considerations, scholars have begun to group
proverbs more systematically according to linguistic and logical types. This methodology
has the advantage that proverbs of the same structure (like “Where there is X, there is Y”)
or of the same logical thought pattern (such as texts based on such oppositions as one:two
or small:large) can be grouped and analyzed together. While they might have completely
different metaphors, such proverbial signs express fundamental human thought patterns.
Grigorii L’vovich Permiakov in Russia, Matti Kuusi in Finland, and Alan Dundes in the
United States have been particularly interested in fitting all proverbs into a limited
number of universal types. This research will facilitate the work of scholars interested in
comparative and international paremiology (study of proverbs) and paremiography
(collection of proverbs).
Much has been written about the origin of proverbs, some of which goes back as far as
texts carved on Sumerian cuneiform tablets from 3000 B.C. Many proverbs still in use,
like “Big fish eat little fish” and “A sound mind in a sound body,” date back to Greek and
Latin antiquity. Another major source of proverbs is ancient-wisdom literature contained
in such religious works as the Talmud or the Bible, as, for example “Pride goes before the
fall” (Solomon 16:18) or “It is better to give than to receive” (Aposdes 20:35). But the
vernacular languages also developed their own proverbs, and the Anglo American world
is rich in proverbs from the Middle Ages. Geoffrey Chaucer in particular used many early
English proverbs in his works, and the same is true for William Shakespeare in the 16th
century. All over Europe, the 16th and 17th centuries are considered the Golden Age of the proverb. They permeate all written records, from literary works and religious treatises
to folk narratives. This is also the time when major proverb collections were put together,
as, for example, John Heywood, A Dialogue Conteinyng the Nomber in Effect of all the
Prouerbes in the Englishe Tongue (1549), George Herbert, Outlandish Proverbs (1640),
and John Ray, A Collection of English Proverbs (1670).
Are proverbs still coined in such a modern technological society as the United States?
Of course they are, and it might even be argued that modern-day America represents yet
another “heyday” of the proverb. Proverbs are still “invented” by individuals, and if a
particular statement exhibits at least one of the proverb markers mentioned above it might
just catch on—it might gain currency in a family setting, a village, a city, a state, the
entire nation, and eventually even the world. In a technological world connected globally
by computer networks and the ever-present mass media of newspapers, radio, and
television, short and witty utterances can become almost instantaneous quotations known
throughout the land. The speed in which new and possible proverbial wisdom can be
disseminated today is truly mind-boggling. While it might have taken decades in earlier
times for a precise statement and its variants to become proverbial, this general currency
might now be accomplished in a few days. Just think of a quip by a major public figure,
an advertising slogan, a film or song title. Of course, the test of time still needs to be
applied to such proverbial neologisms; the elements of traditionality and general currency
must come into play in order for such a “pithy” statement to be considered as a bona fide
proverb. One thing for sure, the time of “proverb making” is by no means over, and there
are dozens of modern American proverbs to prove it.
The rich American proverb stock is to a large extent made up of classical, biblical, and
English sayings, but besides the early English settlers many other groups of immigrants
brought their own proverbs with them. Many of these texts were translated into English
in due time, and thus there are plenty of Americanized foreign proverbs current in this
nation of immigrants. These proverbs also continue to be in use in their original
languages among the many ethnic groups in this country. The Spanish language in
particular is gaining much ground in the Southwestern states due to their Mexican
American population. French is still spoken in New Orleans, northern Vermont, and in
the province of Quebec in Canada. There are also many Jewish citizens who speak
Yiddish, a language that includes numerous metaphorical proverbs. The same is true for
Chinese, German, Greek, Haitian, Irish, Italian, Polish, Russian, Scandinavian,
Vietnamese, and many other immigrant minorities and their native proverbs. As cultural
and ethnic diversity plays an ever greater role in American society, these foreignlanguage proverbs will continue to thrive, and some of them will also gain general
currency in the form of American loan translations. Such a dual linguistic existence might
be seen in the German proverb Kind nicht mit dem Bade ausschütten” (Don’t throw
the baby out with the bath water). German immigrants (especially the Pennsylvania
Dutch) still cite this 16th-century proverb in German, while Americans in general have
been using it in English translation since the early 20th century.
Very little is known about the indigenous proverbs of the Native Americans. In fact,
anthropologists, folklorists, and linguists have repeatedly pointed out that they have
hardly any proverbs at all, a unique phenomenon since proverbs are common throughout
the world’s populations. It is known, however, that Native Americans do communicate with metaphors, and some proverbs have been collected from the Crow Indians of
Montana, the Kwakiutls of Vancouver Island, the Tsimshians of British Columbia, and
the Tzotzils of southern Mexico. Among the few known authentic texts are “A deer,
though toothless, may accomplish something,” “What will you eat when the snow is on
the north side of the tree?” and “The road is still open, but it will close.” Further and
concerted field research will surely bring to light additional texts of the neglected
proverbial treasure of the Native American languages.
Much more information is available about African American proverbs. While some of
them can be traced to African origins, others definitely have been coined in the United
States. Joel Chandler Harris included a section of “Plantation Proverbs” in his classic
book Uncle Remus: His Songs and Sayings (1881). Many of these texts, like “De
proudness un a man don’t count w’en his head’s cold” and “Dem w’at eats kin say
grace,” reflect the early slave existence of African Americans. But more modern texts
also refer to social concerns of the Black population that lives in inner-city ghettos, as,
for example, “What goes around comes around,” “Black is beautiful,” and “If you don’t
know much, you can’t do much.”
It is obviously difficult to establish which English-language proverbs current in the
United States were actually coined in this country. Each individual proverb would require
its own researched history, but this has been done for only very few texts. Major and
minor proverb collections that claim in their title that they contain “American” proverbs
should, in fact, state that their registered texts represent proverbs current in the United
States. The same is true for small regional collections of proverbs from various states.
When such books use titles that speak of Michigan or Vermont proverbs, they actually
mean that they contain proverbs that were collected in those states. For most texts, it
would be very difficult or impossible to ascertain their specific origins. But there are
some proverbs that are proven to be of American coinage, among them “It pays to
advertise,” “Paddle your own canoe,” and the quintessential American proverb,
“Different strokes for different folks.” The latter was coined in the early 1950s among the
African American population in the South, and it can be considered to express the general
worldview of most Americans. Here is a truly liberating proverb that for once does not
tell people what or what not to do. This is freedom and democracy translated into
proverbial wisdom, using most of the structural and poetic markers discussed above, and
thus having had no problem at all gaining proverbial status.
The worldview of the colonial period and the early years of this nation was expressed
in the many proverbs that Benjamin Franklin included in his Poor Richard’s Almanacks
published between 1733 and 1758. The last issue of this popular publication included his
famous essay entitled “The Way to Wealth” (1758), which in its few pages contains 105
proverbs culled from the almanacs. They add much traditional wisdom to this masterful
treatise on virtue, prosperity, prudence, and, above all, economic common sense. Most of
the proverbs had long been in use in England, but Franklin also included his own
inventions that have over time become proverbial, such as “Industry pays debts, while
despair increases them” and “There will be sleeping enough in the grave.” Many
Americans believe that Franklin coined most of the proverbs in this essay, but nothing
could be further from the truth. Not even the popular proverb “Early to bed, early to rise,
makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise” stems from him. Earlier variants date back to the late 15th century, and the proverb in this precise wording was recorded for the first
time in 1639 in England.
A century later, Ralph Waldo Emerson had a similarly high esteem for proverbial folk
wisdom. This prolific American preacher, rhetorician, essayist, transcendentalist,
philosopher, pragmatist, and humanist was also an early paremiologist of sorts. He
included proverbs in all of his writings, at times also explaining more theoretically that
they are the “language of experience,” that they express “practical wisdom,” that they
teach “worldly prudence,” and that they are “metaphors of the human mind.” Many
American literary figures shared this positive feeling about proverbs, integrating them
with relative frequency in their novels, dramas, and poems. Some of the more
“proverbial” authors are Edward Taylor, Cotton Mather, Henry David Thoreau, Herman
Melville, Alice Cary, Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain, Rowland Robinson, William
Faulkner, John O ‘Hara, Arthur Guiterman, W.H.Auden, Eudora Welty, and Susan
Fromberg Schaeffer. Robert Frosts famous poem “Mending Wall” (1914) includes one of
America’s favorite proverbs, which often is thought to have been coined by Frost
himself. But “Good fences make good neighbors” in this precise wording found its way
into an early farmer’s almanac in 1850. Mention must also be made of Carl Sandburg’s
long poem “Good Morning, America” (1928), which includes a whole section on
proverbial language that begins with the proclamation “A code arrives; language; lingo;
slang;/behold the proverbs of a people, a nation.”
Popular songs, from traditional folksongs and ballads to modern rock and roll and
country-western hits, also do much to keep traditional proverbs alive or to disseminate
new texts. Thus, the solidly American proverb “Root, hog, or die” appears at the end of
each of the eight stanzas of an early-19thcentury bull-whackers’ song with the same title.
The same independent and pragmatic approach to life during the pioneer days is
expressed in the “proverb song” titled “Paddle Your Own Canoe” (ca. 1871). Proverbs
are also popular in the musicals of Gilbert and Sullivan, and there are many modern
“hits” with proverbial titles by major stars, such as “Takes Two toTango” (1952) by Pearl
Bailey, “Can’t Buy Me Love” (1964) by the Beatles, “Like a Rolling Stone” (1965) by
Bob Dylan, “Easy Come, Easy Go” (1967) by Elvis Presley, and “Apples Don’t Fall Far
from the Tree” (1973) by Cher. The proverbs cited in these songs are usually interpreted
seriously: They are valued expressions of general human behavior and feelings.
Proverbs are not always taken at their face value. People have always been aware of
the existence of contradictory proverbs. Such proverb pairs as “Absence makes the heart
grow fonder” and “Out of sight, out of mind” are ample proof that proverbs do not
express universal truths. Their truth value is actually quite limited and always dependent
on the particular context in which they are used. Realizing that proverbs often are too
rigorous in their moral or ethical message, and due to the fact that they have been quoted
too often as ultimate wisdom, people have parodied and twisted them to get some
humorous relief. There is even a special proverbial subgenre of “wellerisms,” which are
based on the triadic structure of (1) a statement (often a proverb), (2) an identification of
the speaker, and (3) a phrase that puts the statement into an unexpected situation resulting
in a satirical, ironic or humorous comment. Well-known examples include “‘Everyone to
his taste,’ said the farmer and kissed the cow” and “‘All’s well that ends well,’ said the
peacock when he looked at his tail.” Some wellerisms are quite old and rather
internationally disseminated, but America experienced a particular “craze” for wellerisms in 19th-century magazines and newspapers. These “invented” texts followed the pattern
of those that Charles Dickens placed into the mouth of his character Sam Weller (hence
the term “wellerism”) in his novel Pickwick Papers (1836).
While wellerisms are a unique proverbial subgenre that dates back to classical times,
there also exists a long tradition of proverb parodies based only on the actual texts. The
folk have never considered proverbs to be sacrosanct, and while they express rigid
precepts on the one hand, their very rigidity also leads to parody and punning. Often it is
a matter of a short addition to the traditional proverb, as in “New brooms sweep clean,
but the old one knows the corner.” This text has actually become proverbial in its own
right over time. More common are small changes (a mere letter or word) within the short
proverb text that changes it into an “anti-proverb” with an entirely new meaning: “A
man’s best friend is his dogma,” “Money is the root of all wealth,” “Better mate than
never,” “No body is perfect,” “Beauty is only fur deep,” “Chaste makes waste,” “One
man’s meat is another man’s cholesterol.” Some of the more sexual examples are found
as proverbial graffiti on bathroom walls, but so are such liberating new proverbs as “A
woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle” and “You have to kiss a lot of
toads before you find your prince,” the latter being a proverbial allusion to the fairy tale
“The Frog Prince.”
Advertising agencies have also discovered that proverbs in their traditional wording or
cited with innovative twists can serve as effective attention getters. Realizing that most
readers look only at the picture and the headline of an advertisement, it is not surprising
that the slogans are often based on proverbs or at least on proverbial structures. They add
a certain traditional authority to the slogan, especially in the case of biblical proverbs, and
they also assure the recognizability and memorability of the slogan so that consumers
will, in fact, think of it at the time of making a purchasing choice. Thus, a Vermont bank
might simply use the headline “A penny saved is a penny earned” to proclaim its solid
management of saving accounts, but a car company will use the altered proverb “A drive
is worth a thousand words” to support its claim of a comfortable ride. Some slogans have
attained proverbial status in their own right. Perhaps the best-known example is the
slogan “When it rains it pours” by the Morton Salt Company, which most likely was
based on the proverb “It never rains but it pours.” Even slogans that are not based on
proverbs usually use proverbial markers, making clear that advertising is at least in part
both popular culture and folklore.
Many advertisements also include iconographical representations of proverbs in the
form of glossy and glamorous pictures. But this, too, is nothing new. Proverbs and their
metaphors have been translated into woodcuts, emblems, and oil paintings since the
Middle Ages. The Dutch artist Pieter Bruegel even illustrated more than 100 proverbs
and proverbial expressions in his painting Netherlandic Proverbs (1559). There were also
broadsheets depicting up to thirty-six individually framed proverbs, and perhaps one can
look at these as precursors of sorts to the modern cartoons, caricatures, and comic strips
that are frequently based on proverbs. As American society tends ever more toward the
visualization of the world, it is to be expected that metaphorical proverbs will also be
transposed into pictures. Many young Americans do not learn proverbs any longer in
school or through reading, but they pick them up from the comic pages or the political
cartoons in newspapers and magazines. Proverbs and their pictorizations are still very suitable devices to communicate humorously or seriously about the social and human
concerns that occupy modern Americans.
Proverbs, thus, are very much alive in modern society. While such other verbal
folklore genres as the fable are declining, proverbs continue to play a considerable role in
oral and printed communication. They even prolong the life of fables by reducing their
longer texts to mere proverbial expressions, such as “sour grapes.” Older proverbs that
use archaic words or whose ideas are no longer appropriate tend to disappear; other old
standbys continue to be frequently used; and there are also those new proverbs that
express the social worldview of the modern age. The future looks good for proverbs, for
proverbs are never out of season.
Wblfgang Mieder
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