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A proverbial phrase or expression is a type of conventional saying similar to a proverb 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. [1] [2] In 1768, John Ray defined a proverbial phrase as:
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"No matter if it is a white cat or a black cat; as long as it can catch mice, it is a good cat." (Source: From a speech in a meeting of the Secretariat, actually a Sichuan proverb) 实事求是。 Shí shì qiú shì Seek truth from facts (Actually coined by Mao Zedong, but never really effectively used until Deng's time. This is a slogan ...
The reference to horses was first in James Carmichael's Proverbs in Scots printed in 1628, which included the lines: "And wishes were horses, pure [poor] men wald ride". [4] The first mention of beggars is in John Ray's Collection of English Proverbs in 1670, in the form "If wishes would bide, beggars would ride". [4]
A gnome was defined by the Elizabethan critic Henry Peacham as "a saying pertaining to the manners and common practices of men, which declareth, with an apt brevity, what in this our life ought to be done, or not done". [1] It belongs to the broad family of wisdom literature, which expresses general truths about the world. Topics range over the ...
The Proverbs of Alfred is a collection of early Middle English sayings ascribed to King Alfred the Great (called "England's darling"), said to have been uttered at an assembly in Seaford, East Sussex. [1] The collection of proverbs was probably put together in Sussex in the mid-12th century.
The Durham Proverbs are considered to have been used to document everyday business of the people of Anglo-Saxon England. The proverbs were used in monastic schools to teach text along with other texts such as the Disticha Catonis (also known as the "Dicts of Cato") and a Middle English collection titled the Proverbs of Hendyng.
An idiom is a common word or phrase with a figurative, non-literal meaning that is understood culturally and differs from what its composite words' denotations would suggest; i.e. the words together have a meaning that is different from the dictionary definitions of the individual words (although some idioms do retain their literal meanings – see the example "kick the bucket" below).