OXFORD PAPERBACK REFERENCE

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OXFORD PAPERBACK REFERENCE

The Oxford Dictionary of ProverbsJennifer Speake is a freelance writer. She is the editor of the Oxford Dictionary ofForeign Words and Phrases (1997) and of the Oxford Dictionary of Idioms (1999).

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The Oxford Dictionary of ProverbsEdited byJENNIFER SPEAKEPreviously co-edited withJOHN SIMPSONFifth Edition

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DPOxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers theUniversity’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishingworldwide inOxford New YorkAuckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur MadridMelbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei TorontoWith offices inArgentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary ItalyJapan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine VietnamOxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain othercountriesPublished in the United Statesby Oxford University Press Inc., New York Oxford University Press 1982, 1992, 1998, 2003, 2008The moral rights of the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press(maker)First published as The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs, edited by John Simpson,1982Second edition, edited by John Simpson and Jennifer Speake, 1992 Third edition, edited byJohn Simpson and Jennifer Speake, 1998 Fourth edition, edited by Jennifer Speake, 2003 Fifthedition, edited by Jennifer Speake, 2008All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrievalsystem, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writingof Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with theappropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside thescope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at theaddress aboveYou must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose thissame condition on any acquirerBritish Library Cataloguing in Publication DataData availableLibrary of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data availableTypeset by SPI Publisher Services, Pondicherry, IndiaPrinted in Great Britainon acid-free paper byClays Ltd., St Ives plcISBN 978–0–19–953953–61 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Editor’s PrefaceThe fifth edition of the Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs represents the latest stage in OxfordUniversity Press’s coverage of proverbs and reflects the changes that have taken place in thequarter-century since the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs first appeared. The Conciseitself grew out of the monumental Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs, first published in1935 and substantially revised by F. P. Wilson in 1970. A massive work of historicalscholarship, the Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs cast its net over the corpus of Englishliterature and brought together a rich haul of metaphor, idiom, and proverb from all stages ofthe language. From the outset, however, the Concise was intended to fulfil a different needfrom the larger volume, in its focus on contemporary usage and on what the late twentiethcentury English-speaker regarded as a proverb—as John Simpson explains in his Introduction.It is this conception that underlies the present dictionary.Research for the Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs has shown that the proverb in Britain andNorth America is as vital and varied as ever. The resources of the Internet play an increasingrole, not least in providing evidence for the continued currency of an appreciable number ofolder proverbs for which previous editions had offered no citations dating later than thenineteenth century. Over forty additional proverbs have been included in this edition, many ofthem from African, Middle Eastern, and Far Eastern traditions. Some of these are apparentlymodern coinages; others have venerable roots but have recently been revived.For this edition some citations of older proverbs have been deleted, but material showingdifferent forms of the proverb has been retained. Some proverbs settle quickly to a standardform; others seem to be more susceptible of variation, and by citing variants it is possible totrace their evolution. The notes on the individual proverbs draw attention to such points ofinterest.Proverb usage once again shows itself an index of linguistic and social change. Whereasmany older proverbs use ‘man’ for the human subject, modern users often attempt to avoidsuch non-inclusive language, preferring ‘someone’ or ‘a person’. While examples of up-todate usage have been found for nearly four hundred of the proverbs in this book, it seems clearthat other proverbs are starting to undergo obsolescence by reason of social change.Expressions of the received wisdom of a patriarchal agrarian society that organized itselfaccording to the rhythms of the seasons and the Church’s calendar become antiquarianoddities in a modern environment. Thus a woman, a dog, and a walnut tree, the more you beatthem the better they be offends a slew of twenty-first-century sensibilities, while Candlemasday, put beans in the clay has little to say to an urban secular society.

On the other hand, recent pithy expressions of universal predicaments (when all you have isa hammer, everything looks like a nail) or general truths (justice delayed is justice denied)demonstrate a good proverb’s ability to circulate, thrive, and evolve in a variety of contexts.Cartoonists and humorists can assume the easy familiarity of their audience with proverbs, asis shown by recent examples of the opera isn’t over till the fat lady sings and two heads arebetter than one. Although proverbs may be used as clichés by the linguistically lazy, veryfrequently they are used in contexts that show the user’s often sophisticated awareness of theirresonance.Over the years many people have been kind enough to demonstrate their interest in thiswork by drawing my attention to proverbs or discussing them with me. Others, notablyWilliam F. Deeck, have provided invaluable citations. I thank them all for their involvementand encouragement.Jennifer SpeakeOxfordDecember 2007

raphyThematic Index

Abbreviations used in the .EETSesp.et MS(S)Nov.NYOct.ODEPOEDante (before)AprilAugustAuthorized Version (of the Bible), 1611Book of Common Prayercirca (about)centuryconfer (compare)Concise Oxford DictionaryDecemberdictionary (of)DutcheditionEarly English Text Societyespeciallyet alii (and others)FebruaryFrenchGermanGreekhistory (of), historicalibidem (in the same ript(s)NovemberNew YorkOctoberOxford Dictionary of English ProverbsOxford English Dictionary

evisedSeptemberseriesSaintScottish Text Societytranslation (of)United States (of America)volume

IntroductionTh e Concise Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs provides a general history of proverbs incommon use in Britain in the last two hundred years. Some of the proverbs have been in usethroughout the English-speaking world for many years; others (especially Scottish proverbs)have spread from regional use to attain general currency in the nineteenth and twentiethcenturies. Proverbs which originated in the United States and in other countries outside theBritish Isles, such as If you don’t like the heat, get out of the kitchen or The apple never fallsfar from the tree, are included if they are now current in Britain, or if they are particularlyprevalent in their region of origin.A proverb is a traditional saying which offers advice or presents a moral in a short and pithymanner. Paradoxically, many phrases which are called ‘proverbial’ are not proverbs as we nowunderstand the term. We might for instance refer to ‘the proverbial fly on the wall’ or say thatsomething is ‘as dead as the proverbial dodo’, although neither of these phrases alludes to aproverb. The confusion dates from before the eighteenth century, when the term ‘proverb’ alsocovered metaphorical phrases, similes, and descriptive epithets, and was used far more looselythan it is today. Nowadays we would normally expect a proverb to be cast in the form of asentence.Proverbs fall readily into three main categories. Those of the first type take the form ofabstract statements expressing general truths, such as Absence makes the heart grow fonderand Nature abhors a vacuum. Proverbs of the second type, which include many of the morecolourful examples, use specific observations from everyday experience to make a pointwhich is general; for instance, You can take a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink andDon’t put all your eggs in one basket. The third type of proverb comprises sayings fromparticular areas of traditional wisdom and folklore. In this category are found, for example,the health proverbs After dinner rest a while, after supper walk a mile and Feed a cold andstarve a fever. These are frequently classical maxims rendered into the vernacular. In addition,there are traditional country proverbs which relate to husbandry, the seasons, and the weather,such as Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight; red sky in the morning, shepherd’s warning andWhen the wind is in the east, ‘tis neither good for man nor beast.Several of the more common metaphorical phrases are included in the dictionary if they arealso encountered in the form of a proverb. The phrases to cut off your nose to spite your faceand to throw the baby out with the bathwater, for example, would not ordinarily qualify forinclusion, but have been admitted because they are often found in proverb form—Don’t cut offyour nose to spite your face and Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Othermetaphorical phrases (to win one’s spurs, to throw in the towel, etc.), similes (as red as a rose,

as dull as ditchwater), and aphoristic quotations (Power grows out of the barrel of a gun) arenot included. Nevertheless, proverbs which originated in English as quotations, such as Hopesprings eternal or Fools rush in where angels fear to tread, are included when the origins ofthe quotations are no longer popularly remembered.It is sometimes said that the proverb is going out of fashion, or that it has degenerated intothe cliché. Such views overlook the fact that while the role of the proverb in English literaturehas changed, its popular currency has remained constant. In medieval times, and even as lateas the seventeenth century, proverbs often had the status of universal truths and were used toconfirm or refute an argument. Lengthy lists of proverbs were compiled to assist the scholar indebate; and many sayings from Latin, Greek, and the continental languages were drafted intoEnglish for this purpose. By the eighteenth century, however, the popularity of the proverb haddeclined in the work of educated writers, who began to ridicule it as a vehicle for trite,conventional wisdom. In Richardson’s Clarissa Harlowe (1748), the hero, Robert Lovelace, iscongratulated on his approaching marriage and advised to mend his foolish ways. His unclewrites: ‘It is a long lane that has no turning.—Do not despise me for my proverbs.’ Swift, inthe introduction to his Polite Conversation (1738), remarks: ‘The Reader must learn by allmeans to distinguish between Proverbs, and those polite Speeches which beautifyConversation: . . As to the former, I utterly reject them out of all ingenious Discourse.’ It iseasy to see how proverbs came into disrepute. Seemingly contradictory proverbs can bepaired—Too many cooks spoil the broth with Many hands make light work; Absence makes theheart grow fonder with its opposite Out of sight, out of mind. Proverbs could thus become aneasy butt for satire in learned circles, and are still sometimes frowned upon by the polishedstylist. The proverb has none the less retained its popularity as a homely commentary on lifeand as a reminder that the wisdom of our ancestors may still be useful to us today. This shift isreflected in the quotations which accompany the entries in the dictionary: recent quotationsare often taken from the works of minor writers, or from newspapers and magazines, whileearlier quotations are more frequently from the works of major writers.It is a reflection of the proverb’s vitality that new ones are continually being created asolder ones fall into disuse. Surprisingly, A trouble shared is a trouble halved is not recordedbefore the twentieth century, and A change is as good as a rest apparently dates only from thelast decade of the nineteenth; the popular saying A watched pot never boils first occurs as lateas 1848. The computer world has recently given us a potential classic, Garbage in, garbageout, and economics has supplied us with There’s no such thing as a free lunch. Proverbscontinue—as the early collectors never tired of stating—to provide the sauce to relish themeat of ordinary speech.*Proverb dictionaries differ in their manner of ordering material. There are a number of

choices open to the compiler. One method favoured in early dictionaries was a straightalphabetical sequence, starting with all proverbs beginning with the word a, such as A bird inthe hand is worth two in the bush and A stern chase is a long chase, and continuing in thisrigid style until z. The problems caused by this system are manifold, the most apparent beingthe grouping of large numbers of unrelated proverbs under a few words such as a, every, one,and the, forcing the user to engage on a long search for the proverb of his choice. Anotheroption is thematic presentation, whereby proverbs relating to cats, dogs, the Devil, Pride, etc.,are each placed together. Despite the many advantages of this method, confusion can occurwhen there is no clear subject, as when a proverb falls under two or more thematic headings.The manner of arrangement chosen here is that favoured by most major proverb collectionsof recent years, such as M. P. Tilley’s Dictionary of the Proverbs in England in the Sixteenthand Seventeenth Centuries (1950) and B. J. Whiting’s Early American Proverbs andProverbial Phrases (1977). This method combines the advantages of alphabetical andthematic presentation by listing proverbs by the first significant word; thus All cats are grey inthe dark may be found at cats, You cannot put an old head on young shoulders at old, whileEvery picture tells a story occurs at picture. Furthermore, a generous selection of crossreferences is given in the text to assist the reader in cases of difficulty. The first of the threeexamples above, for example, is crossreferenced at grey and dark, the second at head, young,and shoulder, and the third at every, tell, and story. Variant forms are always noted at the mainform when they are important enough to merit inclusion.Illustrative quotations of proverbs are a major feature of the dictionary, as in ODEP.Accordingly, the earliest known example of each proverb’s occurrence in literature is alwaysgiven as the first quotation. Many of the proverbs were probably in common oral use beforebeing recorded in print, but this dictionary clearly must rely upon the evidence of the printedword. When a proverb is known to have existed in another language before its emergence inEnglish, this is indicated in the headnote preceding the quotations. For instance, althoughThere’s many a slip ‘twixt cup and lip is first recorded in English in 1539, its parent form isfound in both Greek and Latin, and this information is provided before the sixteenth-centuryEnglish citation. Similarly, Nothing succeeds like success, first noted in English in 1867, wascurrent in French some decades earlier. It is interesting to note that a high proportion oftraditional ‘English’ proverbs are of foreign origin. Like many of the words in our language,proverbs frequently passed into English from Latin or Greek, through the learned disciplinesof medicine or the law, or from a knowledge of the classical authors; or they came intoEnglish from French in the years following the Conquest. A number of modern proverbs, suchas The opera isn’t over till the fat lady sings or The family that prays together stays together,originated in the United States. Predictably, one classic proverb of English origin is the oldsaying It never rains but it pours.Each entry is provided with several illustrative quotations which show the contexts in whichthe proverb has been used, up to the present day. The standard form of a proverb often changes

during its development: the first recorded use of the current form is always cited. Shortheadnotes are added when there is some obscurity in the meaning or use of a proverb which isnot resolved in the quotations, or when there is some point of grammatical or syntacticalinterest which deserves mention. Thus, the legal implications of Possession is nine points ofthe law and Every dog is allowed one bite are explained, as are the historical origins ofCaesar’s wife must be above suspicion and One might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb.The original meanings of words such as handsome in Handsome is as handsome does are alsodiscussed when necessary.Much of the work involved in the compilation of the dictionary has concerned theverification of quotations. In the past, quotations have often been carried forward from oneproverb dictionary to another without being checked; this is especially true of the olderquotations. All quotations have been rechecked for this dictionary, and are quoted from thefirst edition of the relevant work, unless otherwise stated in the citation or in the Bibliography.Many quotations in other collections were found to have been wrongly dated, principallybecause they were taken from later (often bowdlerized Victorian) editions of the work inquestion, and frequently the true first edition contains a lessfamiliar version of the proverb, orno proverb at all.Self-evident short titles are occasionally used in citations, but whenever possible the titleand author of each work are given in full. Titles have been modernized,

quarter-century since the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs first appeared. The Concise itself grew out of the monumental Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs, first published in 1935 and substantially revised by F. P. Wilson in 1970. A massive work of historical

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