Idioms and proverbs pdf download

English Blessed are those who possess. Latin Everything goes to him who has nothing. 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. 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 alpha- betically.

Spanish An ill life makes an ill end. Scottish All of life is a struggle. Albanian Life is more fragile than the morning dew. Japanese Living life is not like crossing a field. Russian Long life has misery. Latvian There is life and death in the quiver. African Ovambo When life is exhausted, death comes. Vietnamese Mieder — 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 in this fash- ion. He lists proverbs from different nations and languages in English translation, ranging from just a few proverbs to several pages of them per lan- guage. For Iraq he offers the following selection: Iraq A beautiful bride needs no dowry. 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 — 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 partic- ular 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 par- ticular use to translators and people acquiring a foreign language. 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 stan- dards by providing detailed linguistic and historical annotations see bibli- ography.

Regarding the major scholarly English-language proverb collections, it can be said with justifiable pride that the work by Anglo-American paremiogra- phers has served as the model for serious historical proverb dictionaries in other countries. As early as the s, G. In the s the two friends Archer Taylor and Bartlett Jere Whiting decided to add an American component to this historical survey by jointly assembling A Dic- tionary of American Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases, — 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 A dozen years later Whiting completed the survey of American references for English- language proverbs with his large collection of Modern Proverbs and Proverbial Sayings Three years later my co-editors Stewart A.

Kingsbury and Kelsie B. Our dictionary is based on thousands of proverbs and their variants collected during to 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.

It should also be noted that these valuable dictionaries, with the exception of A Dictionary of American Proverbs, also include proverbial expressions, prover- bial comparisons, twin formulas, and at least some wellerisms. Smith no references, but in the 2nd edition of 12 references from the years twice , , , , , , , , , , no change in the 3rd edition of Tilley 17 references from the years , , , , , , , , twice , , , , , , , Whiting 16 references from the years , , , , twice , , , , twice , twice , , , Taylor and Whiting 3 references from the years , , Whiting 69— 13 references from the years , thrice , , , twice , twice , , , Whiting — 9 references from the years , , , twice , , , , Mieder, Kingsbury, and Harder 6 references of variants recorded in the United States between and Titelman 5 references from the years , , , , This is an imposing historical record of 88 references counting a few dupli- cates.

The following citations represent some highlights, with names of au- thors in whose works they were located in parentheses: Brend child fuir fordredeth. Hendyng O! 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. 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. Haliburton As a burnt child would recoil from fire.

Gardner A burnt child dreads the fire. Russell Just these few examples suffice to show that as with all folklore, there are vari- ants also of folk proverbs. 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 and , Flavell , Hazlitt [], Lean — [, ], Simpson [], etc. They too are set up according to key words or themes, and many of them are of a more popular nature. 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 Hen- drickson — The problem is even more vexing when scholars have put forth proverb collections of particular states.

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 Vermon- ters and that the rest are without doubt current in the state of Vermont. 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 ; Dundes Their major function is to predict the weather.

They are based on long observations of natural phenomena by peo- ple 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.

Kingsbury and I chose the title Weather Wisdom: Proverbs, Superstitions, and Signs 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 medi- cal proverbs in German, there are only some minor treatises of them with a few examples in English see Bond ; Elmquist —; Mieder 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.

There are also E. 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. 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 ; Mieder As can be seen, anti-proverbs often follow the structure of the original proverb while changing some of the individual words.

The anti-proverbs also indicate clearly that the structure and word- ing 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.

Cross-references at the ends of entries correspond to collections listed in the bibliography. Arora, Shirley L. Baer, Florence E. Barley, Nigel. Barrick, Mac E. Blehr, Otto. Bond, Donald F. Brunt, D. Burke, Kenneth. Burke, — Doyle, Charles Clay. Dundes, Alan. Folklore Matters, 92— Knoxville: University of Ten- nessee Press. Dundes, Lauren, Michael D. Streiff, and Alan Dundes.

Elmquist, Russell A. Ezejideaku, E. Gallacher, Stuart A. Festschrift for John G. Kunstmann, no editor given, 45— Geise, Nancy Magnuson. Grzybek, Peter. Honeck, Richard P.

Kindstrand, Jan Fredrik. Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara. Krikmann, Arvo. On Denotative Indefiniteness of Proverbs. Mieder, Wolfgang. New York: Garland Publishing. Schneider, II, — New York: Oxford University Press.

Voces amicorum Guilhelmo Voigt sexagenario, ed. Milner, George. London: Tavistock. Russo, Joseph. Seitel, Peter. Whiting, Bartlett Jere. Definition and Classification 31 Winick, Stephen D. Baltmannsweiler, Germany: Schneider Verlag Hohengehren.

Yusuf, Yisa Kehinde, and Joyce T. Zholkovskii, Alexandr K. 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, mean- ing, and function of individual proverbs. Some additional proverbs and proverbial ex- pressions are looked at as well to show how the miller profession gave rise to them. 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 annota- tions to my previous publications where they can easily be found. 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 lan- guages 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 de- cide which linguistic groups should be represented. 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 ; Nicolaisen The examples listed here are not intended to say anything in particular about the nationalities or minorities under con- sideration. 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 be- yond national borders and why there are so many equivalent proverbs that might have different images and structures, but that mean the same thing! 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.

The Babylonian Talmud from about B. 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 mean- ing in a concise and repeatable way. By the time of Aristotle in the fourth cen- tury B. 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.

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. Basil shows in his writings during the fourth century A. 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.

Two splendid illustrations from a Physiologus manuscript of the twelfth century show this most clearly. The first English appearance of the proverb is in an old English homily on St. Est—sone the more fishes in the se eten the lasse. 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. 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 pop- ularity.

Two English misericords of the fifteenth century show a big fish whale that swallows a smaller fish headfirst, bringing to mind the Physiolo- gus tale and its illustrations. In the center panel of The Garden of Earthly Delights 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 Temp- tation of Saint Anthony 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 ra- pacity of the church and which will clearly lead to war, devastation, and an- archy.

Once again there is a fish-like monster, but this time it has human legs and a man is being devoured headfirst. Here death is the final winner as can be seen in some of the early En- glish literary texts as well.

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. 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 fan- tastic fish-like monster flying through the skies with a gaping mouth.

The op- pressor 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 with its many reproductions was part of a pop- ular 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 : Third Fisherman: Master, I marvel how the fishes live in the sea? Pericles, act 2, scene 1 But one need not look far to find literature and art joining forces in the em- blematic publications of the early seventeenth century.

The German Joachim Camerarius presents a round emblem in showing a singular fish eating a smaller one of its own kind. It is little wonder that this motif gained such popularity in the seventeenth cen- tury. War, might, and oppression were rampant in Europe, and one is justi- fied to look at these emblems as sociopolitical statements.

They are satirical caricatures of sorts without attacking any person in particular. 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. 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 in- evitability 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 ab- solutely 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 Con- ference betweene Trvth and Peace presents an interpretation of the proverb that goes right back to the prophet Habakkuk.

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. 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. 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. For the most part its written or pictorial uses continue the fatalistic tradition that the big- ger and stronger will always take advantage of the smaller and weaker. He clearly states that sharks as humans would be much worse than normal sharks since they would go about their destructive busi- ness 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 care- fully orchestrated process of creating small and meek fish that could easily be controlled or devoured if they were to step out of line. 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. More- over, 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? Some are extremely satirical and cynical, others are full of irony or even humor, but such are the re- actions 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. 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 po- litical situations when a large country overpowers a smaller one. Spiraling inflation, the relationship of wages and prices, the class struggle, and minority issues have been depicted by such fish chains.

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. 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.

Judging by the recorded history of this proverb, which spans almost three thousand years, nothing really has changed at all. 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 experi- ences relating to millers and their mills into colorful metaphors.

There exist lit- erally dozens of such proverbs, proverbial expressions, and proverbial comparisons based on the milling trade in many languages and cultures. 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. About one hundred years later the Paston Letters c. And it should be noted that this mill law is common throughout the Eu- ropean 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. Whoever comes to the mill first, grinds first Qui cicius venerit, cicius molit. The many translations of his Adagia proverb collection helped to spread this fascinating proverb from language to language through the process of loan translations.

Who arrives first, should grind first Spanish: Quien primero viene, primero muele. Who comes first, grinds first Dutch: Die eerst ter molen comt sal eerst malen. 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. His beard, as any sow or fox, was red, And broad it was as if it were a spade. Then this is the book for you.

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