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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:
In addition, proverbs may still be used in languages which were once more widely known in a society, but are now no longer so widely known. For example, English speakers use some non-English proverbs that are drawn from languages that used to be widely understood by the educated class, e.g. "C'est la vie" from French and "Carpe diem" from Latin.
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).
The dependency grammar trees of a few sentences containing non-constituent idioms illustrate the point: The fixed words of the idiom (in orange) in each case are linked together by dependencies; they form a catena. The material that is outside of the idiom (in normal black script) is not part of the idiom. The following two trees illustrate ...
— English proverb. Today me, tomorrow thee. [3] — English proverb. That is: today this happens to me, but tomorrow to you. To thine own self be true. [4] —William Shakespeare. Archaisms often linger in proverbs, "falling easier on the tongue", [5] and employing two of the four fundamental rhetorical effects, permutation (immutatio) and ...
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:
Page from the 1901 edition of Thomas Carlyle's Sartor Resartus (1833–34) on which the proverb appears, marking its earliest usage in English. "Speech is silver, silence is golden" is a proverb extolling the value of silence over speech. Its modern form most likely originated in Arabic culture, where it was used as early as the 9th century.
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