A proverb is a simple, traditional saying that expresses a perceived truth based on common sense or experience. Proverbs are often metaphorical and use formulaic language. A proverbial phrase or a proverbial expression is a type of a conventional saying similar to proverbs and transmitted by oral tradition. The difference is that a proverb is a fixed expression, while a proverbial phrase permits alterations to fit the grammar of the context. Collectively, they form a genre of folklore.
"No such thing as a free lunch" is a popular adage communicating the idea that it is impossible to get something for nothing. The acronyms TANSTAAFL, TINSTAAFL, and TNSTAAFL are also used. The phrase was in use by the 1930s, but its first appearance is unknown. The "free lunch" in the saying refers to the formerly common practice in American bars of offering a "free lunch" in order to entice drinking customers.
A Japanese proverb may take the form of:
In sociology, a friend of a friend is a human contact that exists because of a mutual friend. Person C is a friend of a friend of person A when there is a person B that is a friend of both A and C. Thus the human relation "friend of a friend" is a compound relation among friends, similar to the uncle and aunt relations of kinship. Though friendship is a reciprocal relation, the relation of a friend of a friend may not be a friendship, though it holds potential for coalition building and dissemination of information.
You can't have your cake and eat it (too) is a popular English idiomatic proverb or figure of speech. The proverb literally means "you cannot simultaneously retain possession of a cake and eat it, too". Once the cake is eaten, it is gone. It can be used to say that one cannot have two incompatible things, or that one should not try to have more than is reasonable. The proverb's meaning is similar to the phrases "you can't have it both ways" and "you can't have the best of both worlds."
The squeaky wheel gets the grease is an American proverb or metaphor used to convey the idea that the most noticeable problems are the ones most likely to get attention. Other variations exist, and suggest that loudness gets attention, and prolongs the life of the hub. Conversely, a silent hub may be overlooked and neglected. And there is no necessary correlation between loudness and stridency and merit.
John Richard Motta is an American former basketball coach whose career in the National Basketball Association (NBA) spanned 25 years. Motta coached the Washington Bullets to the 1978 NBA Championship, and he won the 1971 NBA Coach of the Year Award with the Chicago Bulls. Motta is eighth all-time with 1,952 games as coach, while ranking 13th in wins and fourth in losses; he has the most wins of eligible coaches not currently inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. In 25 seasons as a coach, he reached the postseason fourteen times.
Many Chinese proverbs exist, some of which have entered English in forms that are of varying degrees of faithfulness. A notable example is "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step", from the Dao De Jing, ascribed to Laozi. They cover all aspects of life, and are widely used in everyday speech, in contrast to the decline of the use of proverbs in Western cultures. The majority are distinct from high literary forms such as xiehouyu and chengyu, and are common sayings of usually anonymous authorship, originating through "little tradition" rather than "great tradition".
An anti-proverb or a perverb is the transformation of a standard proverb for humorous effect. Paremiologist Wolfgang Mieder defines them as "parodied, twisted, or fractured proverbs that reveal humorous or satirical speech play with traditional proverbial wisdom". Anti-proverbs are ancient, Aristophanes having used one in his play Peace, substituting κώẟων "bell" for κύων "bitch, female dog", twisting the standard and familiar "The hasty bitch gives birth to blind" to "The hasty bellfinch gives birth to blind".
The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations is the Oxford University Press's large quotation dictionary. It lists short quotations that are common in English language and culture. The 8th edition, with 20,000 quotations over 1126 pages, was published for print and online versions in 2014. The first edition was published in 1941.
Deborah Joy Voigt is an American dramatic soprano who has sung roles in operas by Wagner and Richard Strauss.
A rolling stone gathers no moss is a proverb, first credited to Publilius Syrus, who in his Sententiae states, "People who are always moving, with no roots in one place or another, avoid responsibilities and cares." The phrase spawned a shorter mossless offshoot image, that of the rolling stone, and modern moral meanings have diverged, from similar themes such as used in the popular song "Papa Was a Rollin' Stone", to a more complementary commentary on "freedom" from excessive rootedness, such as in the band The Rolling Stones.
"All that glitters is not gold" is an aphorism stating that not everything that looks precious or true turns out to be so.
Daniel John Cook Jr. was a sports writer for the San Antonio Express-News for 51 years. He is most notable for making the phrase "the opera ain't over till the fat lady sings" into common use. Described as a "sports icon", Cook started working at KENS in 1956 and continued to work at the television station until 2000. For most of these years, the TV station was owned by the San Antonio Express-News.
The phrase "when pigs fly" is an adynaton—a figure of speech so hyperbolic that it describes an impossibility. The implication of such a phrase is that the circumstances in question will never occur. The phrase has been used in various forms since the 1600s as a sarcastic remark.
"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana" is a humorous saying that is used in linguistics as an example of a garden path sentence or syntactic ambiguity, and in word play as an example of punning, double entendre, and antanaclasis.
The word ain't is a negative inflection for am, is, are, has, and have in informal English. In some dialects, it is also used for do, does, and did. The development of ain't for the various forms of be, have, and do occurred independently, at different times. The use of ain't for the forms of be was established by the mid-18th century and for the forms of have by the early 19th century.
"It Ain't the Meat (It's the Motion)", also known as "It Ain't the Meat", is a rhythm and blues song written by Henry Glover and Syd Nathan. It was first recorded in 1951 by the Swallows and released by King Records. It was later covered by Maria Muldaur in a 1974 version that has been credited with popularizing the song's title phrase as a proverb, referring to the importance of a man's sexual technique over the size of his penis.
