When two elephants tussle, it’s the grass that suffers

ZANZIBAR

CONTENTS

COVER

TITLE PAGE

INTRODUCTION

THEMATIC CLASSIFICATION

LIST OF PANELS

AS THEY SAY IN ZANZIBAR

KEEP READING

FURTHER READING

INDEXES:

1 THEMES

2 BOOK TO ROGET

3 ROGET TO BOOK

4 LEXEMES

5 COUNTRIES

COPYRIGHT

ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

INTRODUCTION

When the occasion comes, the proverb comes GHANA

If there is falsity in a proverb, then milk can be sour INDIA

IS THERE still a place for proverbs in the language of the twenty-first century? When I began to compile this book, I asked several people what they thought of proverbs, and encountered a surprising number of negative reactions. One widely held view maintains that proverbs are clichéd expressions, used by those who have not bothered to think clearly. Another sees them as out of date, a reflection of a bygone age. One person – an Internet geek – told me that he ‘wouldn’t be seen dead using one’, citing ‘Too many cooks spoil the broth’ as a case in point.

There is a curious double-think operating. I later heard that same geek joking with some colleagues about the poor military intelligence that had led a certain government to make some bad decisions. ‘Garbage in, garbage out’, said the geek. The phrase originated in his IT world: if invalid data (garbage) is entered into a system, the output will also be invalid. During the 1990s, the expression came to be applied to an increasingly varied range of situations. Within a decade, it had taken on proverbial status. My anti-proverbial geek was using a proverb without realizing it.

Within a few days of that first enquiry, I heard several people dropping proverbs, or fragments of proverbs, into their conversations. ‘Needs must’, said one. ‘Ask a silly question’, said another. ‘People in glass houses’, said a third. None of them bothered to complete the well-known proverbs. They were taken for granted.

People may not quote proverbs in full as much as they used to, or treat them with the high respect of an earlier age, but they certainly allude to them. Anyone looking out for proverbs in everyday situations would quickly be able to add to the following brief selection:

 A university department that was being axed advertised its farewell party under the banner headline: ‘Come and Hear the Fat Lady Sing’.

 A TV comedian made a risqué joke based on ‘A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush’.

 A US motel trying to attract custom to the claimed comfort of its facilities had a sign outside: ‘The early bird only gets the worm’.

 A TV comedy programme called itself ‘Birds of a Feather’.

Proverbs continue to fascinate people. Here is a test anyone can do. Choose one of the less familiar proverbs from this book, drop it into a conversation, and see what happens. My favourite is the Irish proverb Never bolt your door with a boiled carrot. There is invariably an interesting discussion about the proverb’s origins and use. And one proverb then reminds someone of another. It is a bit like punning: when one person makes a pun, others try to do better. Puns are batted back and forth. Some linguists have called this phenomenon ‘ping-pong punning’. There is ping-pong proverbing too. Proverb exchanges and contests have a literary history. You will find one in Shakespeare.

There is something about the proverbs associated with other cultures that allows them to evade the kind of criticism we level at our own native expressions. Whatever else we might say about the following, we would not for one moment call them clichés.

A coconut shell full of water is a sea to an ant (ZANZIBAR)

Don’t call the alligator a big-mouth till you have crossed the river (BELIZE)

An untouched drum does not speak (LIBERIA)

Do not try to borrow combs from shaven monks (CHINA)

Such proverbs do more than express a general truth or universal belief. Each in its own way adds a tiny bit more to our understanding of the world’s linguistic and cultural diversity, and thus helps us grasp more fully what it means to be human.

It is a commonplace of comparative linguistics that every language expresses a unique vision of the world. This is not to say that each language is so different from others that its speakers can never communicate outside their own people. The existence of ‘balanced bilinguals’ – people who have learned two languages from childhood with equal fluency – and the everyday phenomenon of translating and interpreting proves otherwise. Rather, it is to point out that languages are not identical in the way in which they talk about the world. There is a limit to the amount of exact translation equivalence that can be achieved, and people have to be satisfied with an approximation. And it is in this area of approximate equivalence that fascinating cultural differences can be found.

Commentators over the years have drawn attention to the importance of a comparative linguistic perspective on life. Here is Ezra Pound, in The ABC of Reading (1960):

The sum of human wisdom is not contained in any one language, and no single language is capable of expressing all forms and degrees of human comprehension.

And here is George Steiner, in a 1967 essay (‘F R Leavis’):

Is it not the duty of the critic to avail himself, in some imperfect measure at least, of another language – if only to experience the defining contours of his own?

The ideal, of course, is to learn enough of another language to be able to get a sense of the differences directly – to feel the contours, without having to rely on a translating intermediary. The second-best approach is to read, in translation, as much as possible of the culturally distinctive literature of other languages, such as its poems, stories, myths, legends – and proverbs.

A collection of cross-linguistic proverbs is of special interest because it conveys two opposed but equally interesting messages. On the one hand, it draws attention to the differences of expression and perception which characterize the world’s communities. On the other hand, it shows that, to a very great extent, these communities are the same. People recognize, admire and worry over similar things. Notions such as ‘More haste, less speed’ can be found in dozens of cultures. And in such examples as the following, the nuance may vary, but the spirit behind the proverb remains the same:

A guest and a fish after three days are poison (FRANCE)

Seven days is the length of a guest’s life (MYANMAR)

However, this common human perspective is a complication when it comes to compiling a book such as this one, which aims to be illustrative of proverbial diversity and not comprehensive. It is not possible, in a short selection, to include a proverb as it appears in every country; nor – if reader interest is to be preserved – is it desirable. To illustrate the point, consider these variations on the guest theme – just a few taken from Selwyn Gurney Champion’s huge collection of translated cultural proverbs (see Further Reading):

A fish and a guest go bad on the third day and must be thrown out (BASQUE)

Fish and guests smell at three days old (DANISH)

A guest, like a fish, stinks the third day (DUTCH)

A fish and a guest after three days are poison (ENGLISH)

Guests and fish will get old on the third day (ESTONIAN)

The first day a guest, the second a guest, the third day a calamity (HINDI)

Even a welcome guest becomes a bore on the third day (JAPANESE)

We need only one example to appreciate the point, but that means grasping the nettle and selecting one country to represent all. I have endeavoured to introduce as wide a range of countries as possible, when making such choices. There are 110 (apart from England) listed in Index 5.

All anthologies are made with particular audiences in mind, and selections inevitably change over time. Until as recently as thirty years ago, it would have been normal to find in any proverb collection a predominantly masculine bias, reflecting traditional male-dominated society. Many items, both those native to English and those in translation, would have begun with ‘He who …’ or ‘The man who …’. Times have moved on. I have replaced these with a generic usage, unless there is a genuine male v female contrast involved. A remarkable number of proverbs, in many countries, also reflect unpalatable notions, such as the desirability of beating one’s wife to ensure obedience. And most countries have proverbs which are extremely rude about the people, politics, or religion of their neighbours, especially those with whom they have been at war. I have not included these either, wishing to provide a selection which reinforces the ideals of a more tolerant and inclusive age. The dismissive attitudes are available in the older literature cited in Further Reading, should anyone wish to read them.

From a linguistic point of view, I have adopted a sentence-based notion of proverb, as is usual these days. In earlier times, the notion of a proverbial expression covered a wide range of linguistic features, including idioms, riddles, similes, and everyday phrases. John Bull, hard cheese, Merry England, and I told you so have all been called ‘proverbs’ in one collection or another, in times past. All the proverbs in the present collection are sentences, conveying autonomous units of sense in a succinct form. Many display structural balance, parallelism, rhythmical contrast, and other rhetorical features which add to their memorability and help explain their common use. But it is not obligatory for a proverb to have a tightly controlled linguistic structure. What is important is the insight rather than the form.

It is not easy to define proverbs from the point of view of the kinds of insight they express. They are generalizations which express a remarkable range of functions – conveying advice, warning against consequences, predicting likelihoods, and recommending behaviours (such as diplomacy, courtesy, charity, and kindliness). Many are quite literal, such as An apple a day keeps the doctor away. The more interesting ones operate at two levels of meaning. Whatever we can say about the meaning of Don’t burn your candle at both ends, one thing is certain: we are not really talking about candles.

Proverb collections have used many methods of organization, from alphabetical order to a broad thematic classification. For the present book, I felt the most interesting principle would be to organize the material into semantic fields, as it is in these domains that we are likely to encounter interesting cultural comparisons. Semantic fields are ways of organizing words (more strictly, lexemes: see Index 4) into related groups, such as ‘furniture’, ‘fruit’, and ‘parts of the body’.

There is no single way of grouping words (and thus proverbs) semantically. Within the category of ‘parts of the body’, for example, we can distinguish such contrasts as ‘upper’ v ‘lower’, or ‘head’ v ‘trunk’ v ‘limbs’, or ‘arms’ v ‘legs’, or ‘fingers’ v ‘hands’, and so on. For the present book, I have allowed my depth of detail to be influenced by the nature of the proverbial material. Proverbs talk quite a lot about parts of the body, so I have devoted several sections to them (232–250). By contrast, there are very few proverbs devoted to musical instruments, so I have grouped all types of instrument under a single heading (272).

But how to organize the semantic fields into a sequence? Some collections adopt an arbitrary solution, listing them alphabetically, beginning with ‘Ability’ (or some other A-notion) and ending with such categories as ‘Year’ or ‘Youth’. This has the disadvantage of separating groups that we feel should belong together. Others list proverbs according to the ‘most significant word’ – an approach which is doomed to confusion, faced with the many proverbs that contain words that compete for our attention. Which is the most significant word in The sweeter the perfume, the uglier the flies which gather round the bottle? Plainly, all the main words make a contribution to the sense, and all need to be recognized.

I much prefer an approach which sequences proverb categories on the basis of the semantic relationship between them. I could have started from scratch, and devised a new system, but what is the point, when we already have a system of semantic classification that has been in widespread use for the past 150 years? I am referring to Roget’s Thesaurus, first published in May 1852. Roget has become the standard tool for people who want a thesaurus which organizes words into fields of meaning (as distinct from those thesauruses which list words in alphabetical order along with sets of synonyms and antonyms). I felt the level of generality which Roget used in his approach would be close to that required in a thematic classification of proverbs, so I adopted his logic as a means of sequencing the themes I needed to recognize in this book. Sometimes Roget’s categories were too abstract, and I had to break them down into more specific domains. Sometimes they were too narrow, and I had to group them into broader types. But on the whole the exercise was helpful, and many of my themes are in a one-to-one relationship with Roget’s. The approach may also help those who wish to take Roget in new directions. I have always regretted the absence of proverbs in that work, and Indexes 2 and 3 of the present book can be used to add a proverbial dimension to it.

How then to handle the complexity of such proverbs as The sweeter the perfume, the uglier the flies which gather round the bottle? If one of the constituent words stood out – flies, say – it would be possible to place the proverb into the appropriate category (‘Insects’) and cross-refer all the other words to it. But that would mean five cross references – from sweet, perfume, ugly, gather round, and bottle. Clearly, such a method of classification would flood a book with cross references, and readers would be forever jumping around with their fingers in different pages.

The alternative is to place the proverb into each of the semantic fields that its constituent words belong to. So, we would locate this proverb once under ‘Bottles’, once under ‘Sweet’, and so on. The demerit of this approach is that a single proverb appears several times throughout the book. But this is far outweighed, in my view, by the convenience of seeing each proverb in its appropriate semantic place, without the need for cross reference. The statistics are as follows: the book as a whole has some 7,500 listings, representing 2,015 different proverbs, grouped into 468 semantic fields, representing around 650 themes. For a list of the semantic fields and their order, see the Contents page. For a complete listing of all the themes recognized within these fields, see Index 1.

Anthologies are never finished, only abandoned. In the case of proverbs, one has to recognize very early on that the field is one of extraordinary magnitude. The proverbs of the world are numbered not in thousands but in millions. What is a couple of thousand among so many? I believe that small-scale compilations have their place, for there are still many avenues in the investigation of proverbs which remain to be explored. For this book, I have attempted to integrate just two dimensions – the cross-cultural and the semantic. But they are dimensions which are not usually considered together, and I hope thereby to make a small contribution to the evolution of this fascinating field.

This has also been an exercise in standing on shoulders. My research has taken me from the early classical collections, such as Ray’s Proverbs of 1767, into modern popular collections, of the ‘Thousand Chinese Proverbs’ type, and from there into the World Wide Web, where there are now some remarkable intercultural sites. I give some references in Further Reading. I warmly acknowledge the help I have had from earlier paremiographers, and hope that this latest anthology does them, and their field, no disservice.

David Crystal

THEMATIC CLASSIFICATION

1  Existence

2  Family

3  Sameness

4  Difference

5  Small amount

6  Large amount

7  Increase – Decrease

8  One alone

9  One of two

10  One of several

11  Accompaniment

12  Two – Twice – Both

13  Three – Third

14  Four or more

15  Next to nothing

16  Multitude

17  Better – Worse

18  Uniting

19  Separating

20  Chain – Rope – String

21  Whole – Part

22  Full – Entire

23  Empty – Lacking

24  Sequence – Order

25  Assemblages

26  Contents

27  Kinds

28  Always happening

29  Conformity

30  Repetition

31  Time

32  Years – Seasons – Months – Weeks

33  Days – Nights

34  Mornings – Afternoons – Evenings

35  Hours – Minutes – Seconds

36  Long time

37  Never

38  Clocks – Watches

39  Beginnings – Endings

40  Beforehand

41  Afterwards

42  Past – Present – Future

43  Sooner or later

44  Newness

45  Oldness

46  Age

47  A time and a place

48  Sometimes

49  Lasting

50  Ceasing

51  Changing

52  Happenings

53  Cause – Effect

54  Strength – Weakness

55  Production

56  Destruction

57  Force

58  Parents – Children

59  Locations

60  Standing – Sitting – Lying

61  Finding

62  Home – Abroad

63  Countries

64  Cities – Towns – Villages

65  Where to live

66  Houses

67  Doors – Windows – Keys

68  Guests

69  Absent – Present

70  Bags – Sacks

71  Barrels – Casks

72  Baskets

73  Bottles – Cans

74  Cups – Glasses

75  Dishes – Plates

76  Pots – Bowls – Jugs

77  Spoons – Ladles

78  Wells

79  Other containers

80  Loads

81  Big size

82  Little size

83  Big v Little

84  Distance

85  Nearness

86  Long – Short

87  Middle – Ends

88  Wide – Narrow

89  Hairs – Threads

90  High – Low

91  Depth

92  Hills – Mountains

93  Top – Bottom

94  Holding

95  Support

96  Tables – Chairs

97  Upright – Falling

98  Outside – Inside

99  Covering

100  Clothing

101  Bodywear

102  Footwear

103  Headwear

104  Weaving

105  Between

106  Walls

107  Edges

108  Enclosures

109  In front – Behind

110  Sides

111  Building

112  Straight – Bent – Crooked

113  Roundness

114  Prominences

115  Holes

116  Sharp things

117  Rough – Smooth

118  Opening – Closing

119  Motion

120  Standing still

121  Coming – Going

122  Walking

123  Riding

124  Carrying

125  Travel by land

126  Travel by sea

127  Travel by river

128  Swimming

129  Travel by air

130  Fast

131  Slow

132  Striking

133  Directions

134  Throwing

135  Pushing – Pulling

136  Arrival

137  Departure

138  Entering – Leaving

139  Hunger

140  Thirst

141  Eating

142  Food

143  Cooking

144  Meals

145  Fruit

146  Vegetables

147  Meat

148  Soup

149  Bakery

150  Dairy

151  Sauces – Condiments – Sweeteners

152  Alcoholic drinks

153  Non-alcoholic drinks

154  Excretion

155  Inserting – Extracting

156  Passing

157  Ascent

158  Descent

159  Lifting – Rising

160  Lowering – Dropping

161  Jumping

162  Revolving

163  Shaking

164  Things

165  Materials

166  World

167  Sun – Moon – Stars

168  Sky – Clouds – Weather

169  Wind

170  Weight

171  Hard – Brittle – Soft

172  Flour

173  Rubbing – Lubricating

174  Water

175  Semi-liquids – Semi-solids

176  Wet – Dry

177  Seas

178  Rivers – Streams

179  Inland water

180  Conduits

181  Land – Ground

182  Rocks – Stones

183  Breathing – Blowing

184  Birth

185  Life

186  Death

187  Life v Death

188  Killing

189  Drowning

190  Corpses – Burials

191  Bears

192  Camels

193  Cats

194  Cattle – Oxen

195  Dogs

196  Elephants

197  Foxes

198  Goats

199  Horses – Donkeys

200  Hyenas

201  Lions – Tigers – Leopards

202  Mice – Rats

203  Monkeys – Gorillas

204  Pigs

205  Rabbits – Hares

206  Sheep

207  Wolves

208  Other wild animals

209  Birds

210  Types of bird

211  Poultry

212  Fish – Fishing

213  Types of fish – Crustaceans

214  Frogs – Toads

215  Reptiles

216  Worms

217  Ants

218  Bees

219  Fleas

220  Flies

221  Other insects

222  Forests – Woods

223  Trees

224  Grass – Hay

225  Bushes – Hedges

226  Flowers – Gardens

227  Agriculture

228  People – Peoples

229  Men

230  Women

231  Men v Women

232  Heart – Blood

233  Bones – Joints

234  Back – Buttocks

235  Stomach – Liver

236  Skin – Fur – Shell – Feathers

237  Head

238  Hair (or not)

239  Face

240  Mouth

241  Tongue

242  Teeth

243  Ears

244  Eyes

245  Arms

246  Hands

247  Fingers – Thumbs

248  Legs

249  Feet – Toes

250  Tail

251  Washing

252  Feeling

253  Touch

254  Heat – Warmth

255  Fire

256  Extinguishing

257  Fuel – Smoke

258  Cold – Cool

259  Taste

260  Sweet

261  Sour

262  Smell

263  Sound

264  Silence

265  Faint noise

266  Loudness

267  Object noises

268  Animal noises

269  Human noises

270  Music

271  Song

272  Musical instruments

273  Hearing

274  Light

275  Candles – Lanterns

276  Dark

277  Looking – Seeing

278  Blindness

279  Colours

280  Black – White

281  Watching

282  Appearing – Disappearing

283  Mind

284  Thinking

285  Attention – Inattention

286  Careful – Careless

287  Questions

288  Answers

289  Seeking

290  Counting – Testing – Measuring

291  Possible – Probable – Impossible

292  Certain – Uncertain

293  Judging

294  Discovering

295  Belief – Unbelief

296  Knowledge

297  Ignorance

298  Scholarship

299  Truth

300  Error

301  Proverbs – Sayings

302  Intelligence

303  Wisdom

304  Stupidity

305  Madness

306  Remembering

307  Forgetting

308  Expectation

309  Destiny

310  Meaning

311  Information

312  Disclosure

313  Concealment

314  Books

315  News – Advertising

316  Teaching – Learning

317  Lies

318  Deception

319  Signs – Symbols

320  Art – Arts

321  Languages

322  Words

323  Names – Titles

324  Speech

325  Conversation

326  Reading – Writing

327  Literature

328  Endurance – Patience

329  Choice

330  Habit – Practice

331  Good

332  Better

333  Best

334  Bad

335  Worse

336  Worst

337  Business

338  Pursuit

339  Avoidance

340  Passageway

341  Roads – Streets

342  Need

343  Manner – Means

344  Tools

345  Providing – Keeping

346  Sufficient

347  Importance

348  No matter

349  Useful

350  Useless

351  Perfect – Imperfect

352  Clean

353  Dirty

354  Health – Ill health

355  Diseases

356  Mending – Restoring

357  Healing – Medicine

358  Doctors – Dentists

359  Deterioration

360  Poison

361  Safety – Danger

362  Preservation

363  Trying

364  Using – Not using

365  Deeds

366  Work – Pay – Leisure

367  Energy

368  Operation

369  Inactivity

370  Laziness

371  Awake – Asleep

372  Beds

373  Haste

374  Advice

375  Ability – Skill – Cunning

376  Difficult

377  Easy

378  Help

379  Taking sides

380  Quarrelling

381  Attack – Fighting

382  Defence – Castles

383  War – Peace

384  Soldiers

385  Weapons

386  Complete – Incomplete

387  Success – Failure

388  Fortune – Misfortune

389  Luck – Bad luck

390  Power

391  Obedience – Disobedience

392  Service

393  Freedom

394  Catching

395  Restraint

396  Permission

397  Prevention

398  Acquiring

399  Losing

400  Having possessions

401  Having a mind

402  Having a body

403  Having relatives and pets

404  What animals have

405  What things and notions have

406  Offers – Promises – Refusals

407  Retaining

408  Giving – Gifts

409  Receiving

410  Lending – Borrowing

411  Taking

412  Stealing

413  Buying – Selling

414  Money

415  Types of money

416  Rich – Poor

417  Payment

418  Cost

419  Cheap – Dear

420  Economizing

421  Happiness – Joy

422  Pleasure

423  Sadness – Grief

424  Pain

425  Troubles

426  Laughing – Jesting

427  Crying

428  Amusements

429  Performing arts

430  Gambling – Cards

431  Sports – Games

432  Beauty

433  Beautification

434  Jewellery – Ornament

435  Spoiling

436  Ridicule

437  Hope

438  Fear

439  Courage

440  Caution

441  Desire

442  Wonders

443  Fame – Shame

444  Pride – Modesty

445  Friends

446  Neighbours

447  Enemies

448  Society

449  Politeness

450  Love

451  Kisses – Caresses

452  Dislike – Anger

453  Marriage

454  Tenderness – Forgiveness

455  Goodness – Evil

456  Deserving

457  Respect – Contempt

458  Praise – Blame

459  Drunkenness

460  Laws – Lawyers

461  Punishment

462  God – Gods

463  Angels – Saints

464  Devils

465  Heaven

466  Worship

467  Clergy

468  Church

LIST OF PANELS

Panel 1 Family mottoes

Panel 2 Groups of three

Panel 3 Proverbs in Shakespeare

Panel 4 Country variations – climate

Panel 5 Present tense

Panel 6 Belonging together

Panel 7 Children play with proverbs

Panel 8 Country variations – artefacts

Panel 9 Succinctness

Panel 10 Local words

Panel 11 Phonetic structure

Panel 12 Dramatic proverbs

Panel 13 Tracing a history

Panel 14 First person proverbs

Panel 15 A character called Proverbs

Panel 16 Country variations – animals

Panel 17 Country variations – plants

Panel 18 Contrasts

Panel 19 Proverb grammar

Panel 20 A catch-phrase becoming a proverb

Panel 21 Nonstandard language

Panel 22 Paremiographers

Panel 23 Proverbs in Shakespeare’s school

Panel 24 A proverb poem

Panel 25 Proverbial software

Panel 26 ‘Proverbs’ in Shakespeare

Panel 27 Being bilingual

Panel 28 Authorial creations

Panel 29 Adults play with proverbs

Panel 30 Country variations – beliefs and behaviour

Panel 31 Biblical proverbs

Panel 32 Unfinished proverbs

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