FOLKLORE: MAPS & TERRITORIESEditor: Joyce Bynum

PROVERBS

To DISCUSS PROVERBS in a short space is a difficult task, b u t . . . fools rushin where angels fear to tread.Proverbs appeal not only to folklorists but to students and scholars in many

fields, including semantics, art, anthropology, linguistics, literature, history,law, business, advertising, psychology and religion.

Students of proverbs may concentrate on only one proverb or one type ofproverb. They may also collect or compare them, search for their history, trans-late them, describe their use, analyze their meaning and structure, or assem-ble bibliographies and collections. Fascination with the proverb is apparentthrough the numerous articles on the subject: the journal Proverbium is devotedsolely to articles on the proverb, but many articles appear in other journals aswell. Two ofthe score of scholars who have devoted their entire careers to study-ing the proverb are Matti Kuusi of Finland and Wolfgang Mieder ofthe UnitedStates.

The study of proverbs is called paremiology. Having defined the field ofendeavor, we might attempt to define a proverb, except that what constitutesa proverb has been discussed and argued for years. Trying to distinguishproverbs from aphorisms, cliches, slogans, adages, maxims and other sayings,if indeed possible, would require a lengthy discourse probably unacceptableto paremiologists; some have said that a definition ofthe proverb is impossible.^

Cervantes called proverbs "short sentences drawn from long experience."Matti Kuusi calls them "monumenta humana." In English and American tra-dition they have been called "the wisdom of many and the wit of one" a ver-sion of "one man's wit and all men's wisdom" attributed to Lord John Russell,who negotiated the end ofthe Seven Years War.2

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A definition based on an analysis of proverb structure is offered by AlanDundes: [a proverb] "appears to be a traditional propositional statement con-sisting of at least one descriptive element. . . consisting of a topic and a com-ment," thus making it impossible to have a one-word proverb. But there areproverbs with just one descriptive element ("Money talks").^ There is also the"equational proverb," which may take the form of A = A ("Business is busi-ness," "Boys will be boys"), or A =B ("Time is money," "Seeing is believing"),and Dundes argues that other proverbs such as "He who laughs last laughsbest" and "Many men, many minds" are transformations ofthe A = B form.Oppositional proverbs may take the form A 9^ B ("Two wrongs don't make aright"); similarly, the formula may be A < BorA > B. The point is that "allproverbs are potentially propositions which compare and/or contrast.'"* Interest-ing as this structural study is, the definition of a proverb as "topic and com-ment" isn't helpful in distinguishing it from other items such as riddles andcurses, or from slogans, aphorisms, and quotes.^

Although some folklorists stress the need to consider what the people believeabout an item of folklore and how they themselves classify and define it,^ onescholar thinks an international "supercultural" definition is necessary, and hasoffered this: "A proverb is a typically spoken, conversational form with didac-tic function and not associated with any particular source and necessarily inrelatively fixed form and fixed in meaning."^

Of course, many proverbs appear only in literature, but those in oral circu-lation are a part of folklore, and as such cannot be separated from their socialuse; a folklorist has described them as ". . . short, traditional 'out-of-context'statements used to further some social end."^

Proverbs are similar to poetry not only in their use of metaphor but also ofmeter, rhythm, rhyme, parallelism and alliteration.^ Indeed, some commonproverbs are taken from poetic sources ("Fools rush in . . ." is from Essay onCriticism by Pope), and others are poems in themselves:

Whistling girls and crowing hensWill always come to some bad end.

ORGirls that whistle and hens that crowWill always have fun wherever they go.

Proverbs are very important in most societies in the world, particularly inAfrica; in a great many areas the feeling for imagery and for expressing ideaspoetically is apparent in Africans' use of proverbs. In oratory, legal cases, instruc-tion and everyday conversation, proverbs and other metaphors are used veryfrequently.^

Voiced in whole or in fragments, proverbs are widely used in America today,representing perhaps the most active genre of folklore. Metaphorical proverbsare used much more often than literal proverbs (aphorisms?) such as "Honesty

^0 Et cetera SPRING 1987

is the best policy". . . "The customer is always right". . . "Experience is thebest teacher."

Proverbs provide a ready-made answer, thus rescuing the speaker from think-ing of an original phrase or course of action; personal opinions or advice areusually not appreciated, in any case. In their use they are similar to supersti-tions, since both try to control anxiety situations, either actively to recommenda specific, immediate course of action, ox passively to provide consolation.i 1Archer Taylor, often called "the father of paremiology," said of proverbs, "Asa guide to life's problems, the proverb summarizes a situation, passes a judg-ment, or offers a course of action."i2 I have observed that not only proverbsand superstitions but also quotes from printed sources and folk belief derivedfrom hearsay are used to control anxiety situations, and all may be introducedwith the same phrase, "Well, you know what they say . . ." However, proverbsare received quite differently, and usually are conversation stoppers, whereasother forms invite fiirther comment.

The introductory phrases used with proverbs are very important becausenot only do they signal the listener to prepare for a certain type of informa-tion, but they also change the meaning of the proverb itself Whether thespeaker uses one ofthe common introductory phrases, such as: "My fatheralways used to d a y . . . , " "Well, you know what they say . . . , " "Well, you knowwhat /always say! . . .," or uses a proverb without an introduction, each wouldchange the meaning and impact ofthe proverb. The most common introduc-tion to a proverb in the United States seems to be "Well, you know what theysay . . . , " the use of "they" providing an impersonal quality, a generalization.

The meaning of proverbs depends not only upon the words themselves butalso upon tone, stress, tempoi, pitch, gesture and mien ofthe speaker, the socialroles of both speaker and listener, and the context in which the proverb is used,all of which are difficult to record.

All of us know proverbs which state opposite truths: "Absence makes the heartgrow fonder" but "Out of sight, out of m i n d " . . . and "Look before you leap"but "He who hesitates is lost." The point is that the proverb doesn't have to betrue, it merely has to sound taxe.. Also, an individual proverb can have differ-ent meanings to more than one listener. "A rolling stone gathers no moss" isoften used as illustration. One informant, an editor ofEt cetera, interprets thisproverb to mean that if people move around too much and change jobs too often,they won't be able to accumulate the comforts oflife. Another interprets thisproverb to mean that people should keep busy and active, thus preventing rustand stagnation. To strengthen his claim that moss is undesirable, he points toour use of "moss back" and "mossy" in an undesirable way. Both of theseinterpretations illustrate the English and the Scottish versions; it is claimedthat in England the allusion is to the desirable qualities ofthe moss foimd drapedover stones in a peaceful brook, whereas in Scotland it is to a stone roller, whichcannot be left idle or it will accumulate undesirable moss.^3

As you can see, a discussion of proverbs can be almost never-ending. In the

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next issue, we will discuss: Proverbs in contemporary life; Collections and col-lecting of proverbs; Examples and ideas from our readers.

Your comments are welcome, because, after all, two heads are better thanone, and there is safety in numbers. . . but, then again, could too many cooksspoil the broth?

NOTES AND REFERENCES1. Archer Taylor, The Proverb, (Hatboro, Pennsylvania, 1962), p. 3.2. Archer Taylor, "The Wisdom of Many and the Wit of One." In: Mieder and Alan Dundes,

Eds., (New York & London: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1981), p. 3.3. Alan Dundes, "On the Structure ofthe Proverb." In: W. Mieder and A. Dundes, ibid.,

p. 43-64.4. Alan Dundes, ibid., p. 53.5. Neal R. Norrick, How Proverbs Mean: Semantic Studies in English Proverbs. Trends in

Linguistics: Studies and Monographs 27, Werner Winter, Ed. (Berlin, New York,Amsterdam, Mouton, 1985), p. 57.

6. Dan Ben-Amnos, "Analytical Categories and Ethnic Genres," Genre 2(1969), 275-301.7. Neal R. Norrick, op. cit., p. 79.8. Peter Seitel, "A Social Use of Metaphor." In: W. Mieder and A Dundes, op. cit., p. 124.9. S. J. Sackett, "Poetry and Folklore: Some Points of Affinity," Journal of American Folk-

lore 77 (1964), pp. 143-153.10. Ruth Finnegan, "Proverbs in Africa." In: W. Mieder and A. Dundes, op. cit., pp. 10-42.11. Roger D. Abrahams, "A Rhetoric of Everyday Life: Traditional Conversational Genres,"

Southern Folklore Quarterly 32 (1968), p. 47.12. Archer Taylor, "The Study of Proverbs," Proverbium 1 (1965), p. 7.13. G. B. Milner, "What is a Proverb?" New Society 6, 332 (1969), pp. 199-202. See also G.

Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, "Toward a Theory of Proverb Meaning," in Mieder and Dimdes,op. cit., pp. 111-121.