Job Discussion Forums

[Capergirl]

Do people not know proverbs anymore? I gave an assignment to my students last week. They were each to find the meanings of a number of English proverbs by asking native English speakers. Upon asking English speakers what the meanings are for these proverbs, however, they were more often than not met with blank stares.

Here are some of the proverbs to illustrate:

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
Don't count your chickens before they hatch.
Don't make a mountain out of a mole hill.
We will cross that bridge when we come to it.
If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.
Don't put all your eggs in one basket.
His bark is worse than his bite.
Forbidden fruit always tastes the sweetest.

These are fairly common proverbs, are they not?

[johnslat]

Dear Capergirl,
They all seem very common to me. But then, I'm not a member of the MTV generation. Perhaps being familar with proverbs means that one has to read, a pastime that seems to be in steep decline.
There's a wonderful little book called "The Son of a Duck is a Floater", which compares English proverbs with Arab ones:

http://www.isna.com/bsod.html

http://www.interlinkbooks.com/Apricots_Tomorrow.html

Regards,
John

[tammy]

I've heard all those proverbs before, Capergirl. Even if I hadn't, I'd say that most of them were pretty self-explanatory, especially to a native speaker

[naturegirl321]

I'm of the MTV generation, and I've heard all those before as well. BUt they are hard to explain to non-native speakers because they're proverbs, if that makes sense.

[johnslat]

Dear naturegirl,

"BUt they are hard to explain to non-native speakers because they're proverbs, if that makes sense."

Ah, but one of the wonderful things about humanity is that it tends to share so many ideas - including proverbs: same thought put in different words. That's what the book I mentioned - The Son of a Duck is a Floater -does. It gives the Arabic proverb and the English translation of that proverb, and then provides a proverb in English that "matches" it. For example, the title is the English translation of an Arabic proverb. A corresponding proverb in English could be

Like father, like son.

or

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

Regards,
John

[Capergirl]

I had a hunch that most, if not all, of the folks on this forum would be familiar with these proverbs. Since we teach English, it stands to reason that we are knowledgable about such things. My question is: Does the average Joe Schmo know these proverbs? I'm going to start randomly asking people. Seriously.

[Steiner]

I'm screwing up the quote and I don't know who said it (maybe P.T. Barnum?), but no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public. See there, I'm using "American" to refer to all of the U.S. and Canada. Watching Jay Leno's interviews with people on the street when he asks them simple questions makes me believe that there are people who wouldn't be able to figure out these proverbs.

[johnslat]

Dear Steiner,
Close, but it was that gadfly, Mencken, who said:

�No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American people.�
H.L. Mencken

Regards,
John

[Steiner]

I knew someone would know and I'm not surprised it was you. Thanks.

[johnslat]

Dear Steiner,
Trivia is my life - and vice versa.
Regards,
John

[dmb]

You mean that these Jay Leno interviews are real? I thought they were just set up. Jeez ,I thought my students were stupid.

[Will.]

I use proverbs in class.
The reason is quite simple. We do use them but unfortunately for our students we do not use all of them, that is to say we have a tendency to only use half of a proverb and expect our interlocuter to know the other half, as the actress said to the bishop...
You can lead a horse to water.
How many of us have ever used the complete phrase? We always stop halfway which leaves our proficiency level students bemused, befuddled and bewildered as they don't know the second half and therefore do not have the foggiest idea what is being said and why. This is probably the case with the English native speakers of Capergirl's example they have never been exposed to the whole proverb either.
The other reason I use them is that it allows students to attempt an understanding and find a similar proverb in their own language and convert this to English.
This quite often produces good, funny and often similar results as I am sure many other posters here will testify as it is a bad dancer who blames her dress as the Dalek said as he climbed off the dustbin.

[johnslat]

Another amusing thing about proverbs is that you can sometimes find two that are quite contradictory:

1. Look before you leap

2. He who hesitates is lost

Hmm, so which do I do?

Regards,
John

[Will.]

Too many cooks,
Many hands.

[Celeste]

Out of sight out of mind.
Absence makes the heart grow fonder.