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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:
The 18th edition of the dictionary, published in 2009. Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, sometimes referred to simply as Brewer's, is a reference work containing definitions and explanations of many famous phrases, allusions, and figures, whether historical or mythical.
An argumentum ab inconvenienti is one based on the difficulties involved in pursuing a line of reasoning, and is thus a form of appeal to consequences. The phrase refers to the legal principle that an argument from inconvenience has great weight. ab incunabulis: from the cradle: i.e., "from the beginning" or "from infancy".
First published as number 208 in the verse collection Hesperides (1648), the poem extols the notion of carpe diem, a philosophy that recognizes the brevity of life and the need to live for and in the moment. The phrase originates in Horace's Ode 1.11.
Poe biographer Arthur Hobson Quinn called it "one of [Poe's] finest creations", with each phrase contributing to one effect: a human traveler wandering between life and death. [14] The eighth line of the poem is typically pushed slightly to the left of the other lines' indentation.
William Shakespeare's play Hamlet has contributed many phrases to common English, from the famous "To be, or not to be" to a few less known, but still in everyday English. Some also occur elsewhere (e.g. in the Bible) or are proverbial. All quotations are second quarto except as noted:
In Finnish there are proverb poems written hundreds of years ago. [137] The Turkish poet Refiki wrote an entire poem by stringing proverbs together, which has been translated into English poetically yielding such verses as "Be watchful and be wary, / But seldom grant a boon; / The man who calls the piper / Will also call the tune."
In this context Erasmus quoted another line that had become proverbial, incidit in Scyllam cupiēns vītāre Charybdem (into Scylla he fell, wishing to avoid Charybdis). [4] This final example was a line from the Alexandreis , a 12th-century Latin epic poem by Walter of Châtillon .