The Enduring World of Proverbs

Zusammenfassung

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Byrne dwells into the enduring world of proverbs. As proverbs express the accumulated wisdom of tribes and nations, the language structure of proverbs embodies figurative and rhetorical tricks that lend themselves to easy memorization.

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The Enduring World of Proverbs

EVERY language has a store of short, succinct sayings that cast a light on life and human nature, and strike us by their common sense expressed in verbal felicity. Traditional observation, supple concision and verbal memorability are the essence of proverbial utterance.

Most proverbs have come down to us by word of mouth. Before mass literacy became widespread, memorisation of facts, stories, precepts and proverbs was the norm, and varied techniques were employed to commit didactic data to memory. As proverbs express the accumulated wisdom of tribes and nations, the language structure of proverbs embodies figurative and rhetorical tricks that lend themselves to easy memorisation.

The English language is rich in proverbs, many of which derive from Latin and classical Greek. Commonplace examples abound. Thus Make haste slowly is a direct translation of Festina lente, and the Latin saying Tempus fugit renders happily into Time flies. Some of us who got a smattering of bog Latin at school before western European universities dropped classical languages from entry req...

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