5. Retell the text. What are proverbs?

The definition of a proverb given in the Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English is as good as any: a ‘popular short saying, with words of advice or warning’. Yet it is far from enabling us to identify a proverb with any certainty. Is any widely used short saying a proverb? The important word seems to be ‘popular’. But how popular must a saying be to become a proverb? The line must evidently be drawn somewhere. We suggest that in the real sense of the word it must be thoroughly ‘of the people’. It follows from this that it will usually be an old saying, since it is unlikely to become part of the popular consciousness in a short period of time. There are of course exceptions, and some proverbs jump into the popular mind with unusual rapidity, though we should have to exclude the purely transient catchphrases like ‘I couldn’t care less’ or ‘What’s the odds?’

The definition might have said ‘a short wise saying’, but presumably this was thought unnecessary as the word ‘saying’, when used in this way, implies wisdom. For wisdom is the other main ingredient of the proverb. To become popular it must at least appear outstandingly wise; to remain popular it must in truth contain enduring wisdom. However, the fact remains that some wise sayings have become proverbs, while others equally wise have not. They have been lost or they have remained merely occasional quotations.

It is these positive qualities that make the saying memorable, and by its very nature a proverb is memorable. The devices used in their expression to support this memorable quality are worth nothing. Rhyme and assonance are one such device, e.g.:

‘Little strokes fell great oaks’;

‘There’s many a slip twixt the cup and the lip’;

‘A stitch in time saves nine’.

A simple balanced form is perhaps the commonest device of all, e.g.:

‘More haste, less speed’;

‘Easy come, easy go’.

Brevity is of course an essential aspect of memorable sayings. There are very few proverbs that are at all long, and many of the most popular ones are very short indeed, e.g.:

‘Every dog has his day’;

‘Never say die’;

‘Better late than never’;

‘Let sleeping dogs lie’.

To become a proverb, a saying has to be taken up and assimilated by the common people. In the process, its origin is forgotten. In many cases this must have been as nearly literally true as makes no odds. In the numerous proverbs that summarize everyday experience, the saying probably did grow gradually into its proverbial form without any one single originator. ‘Make hay while the sun shines’, with its origin in farm work, is a case in point. In the same way, ‘Don’t put all your eggs in one basket’ would have developed out of the common-sense experience of produce marketing.

On the other hand, it is equally evident that many other proverbs have had their origin in a specific wise man. If it was in a wise man of oral tradition, we shall of course have no recorded evidence, but if it was in a wise man whose thoughts were written down, we can sometimes trace the source.

In any case, the two sources, the obviously popular and the appa­rently literary, increasingly mingled. With the spread of the printed word sayings of wise men percolated down all the faster to the common people, who, if they found them to their liking, turned them into proverbs. Contrariwise, snatches of popular common sense readily found their way, often under disguise, into the writings of wise men.