Category Archives: Proverbs

Irish Proverb

Text

“A friend’s eye is the best mirror”

Context

My informant heard of this particular Irish proverb from an Irish teacher at his elementary school, and went home to his parents that day to inquire about its meaning. My informant interprets this proverb as meaning that only somebody that knows you well can tell you the objective truth about yourself. My informant said he took this proverb to heart and thinks about it often, but doesn’t necessarily use it much in everyday life.

My Analysis

Obviously we all have self-bias, which can cloud our own self-perception and so it’s necessary that we have a close friend or somebody who knows us well that’ll tell us the truth when we need to it. I’d never heard my informant utter this particular proverb before, so it was fascinating to be able to hear from him about the proverb itself as well his interpretation of its meaning. I realize that this particular post may be rather pithy, but this cultural piece of folklore is rather succinct in its meaning.

Irish Proverb

Text

“The older the fiddle the sweeter the tune”

Context

My informant heard this particular proverb from his Irish grandfather when he was visiting his grandparents’ house in the 1960s. This particular proverb’s meaning is fairly obvious, stating that oftentimes value and merit come with age and experience. My informant said that this proverb stuck out to him, even though he doesn’t remember the context it was originally used in and doesn’t remember the proverb being used often afterwards either. My informant likened this particular proverb to the common adage about how wine gets better the longer its stored, and told me that this Irish proverb means basically the same thing.

Analysis

I agree with my informant that this proverb brings forth similarities to the common adage about how an aged wine is better than a new wine. This proverb is pretty straightforward and explicit, and easily conveys the message it wants to get across. The fiddle is a common instrument in a lot of traditional Irish music, and thus it makes sense to me why an Irish proverb would utilise this particular object.

“El Que Come y Canta Luego Loco Se Levanta”

Informant: My informant is a current sophomore at the University of Southern California. Her parents are from Jalisco, Mexico. However, she grew up in Denver, Colorado. 

Main Piece: “El que come y canta luego loco se levanta”

Transliteration: “He who eats and sings later crazy he wakes up”

Translation: “He who eats and sing later gets up crazy” 

Context: My informant stated that this proverb was/is usually directed to her whenever she sings at the table during dinner or at breakfast. She stated the following “I think my dad was trying to calm me down because out of respect you know you don’t want anyone to be humming while you are eating. Another reason, which I can think of why he would quiet me down was just for cautionary because I could choke or something. As for where he got this proverb, I believe, he got it from his parents as well. Honestly, now that I think about it…him and I are very similar. I’m more than sure that he also hummed at the table when he was younger. “

Analysis: Although it is sweet that my informant’s dad might say this proverb to her as means to be careful. I interpreted it in another way. I think when this proverb was told to my informant’s dad, it might have been to silence children and make them behave by presenting sort of like a threat/excuse that they would choke. I for one also have parents that come from Mexico, but I never have heard this phrase from them, but the rule at the table for is to eat with very little chatter. It comes to no surprise that maybe this proverb was drive by the desire to quiet down children, because sometimes children can be extremely chatty.

Every Closed Eye Ain’t Sleep Proverb

MS is a 60 year old mother of five who grew up in rural Virginia.

Context: This was performed over dinner, talking about black and southern culture.

Transcript:

MS: My mother said this all the time.

Collector: I think I know what it is.

MS: I’m sure you do. It goes:

“Every closed eye ain’t sleep and every goodbye ain’t gone”

MS: She used this in two different contexts. The first is when she would be resting her eyes and we thought she was asleep. We’d talk around her and try to be quiet, but when her eyes were still closed, she’d recite that. When she fell ill she’d tell all her folks that. “Every goodbye ain’t gone” meaning she would see us again.

Thoughts/Analysis: This proverb can be used in a religious context also. MS’s mother was very religious and strongly believed that her and her family would reunite after death and that her soul would remain with them until then. Death/afterlife related proverbs vary over different culture but overall convey the same thing.

For variations of this proverb, see:

Nieri, Itabari. “Only in the Americas : Every Good-Bye Ain’t Gone : Family Portraits and Personal Escapades by Itabari Njeri .” Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, February 25, 1990. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-02-25-bk-1997-story.html#:~:text=The%20title%20of%20this%20collection,bye%20ain’t%20gone.%E2%80%9D.

Bringing home a wolf (humorous proverb)

Main Piece:

JK (50s, american-polish, father): “It’s like buying a wolf and then freaking out when it attacks your kids!”

Background:

The informant is my dad remarking over the phone in response to me explaining how I was upset about not being able to finish working on a multitude of projects outside of school. When asked about where he heard the phrase, he pointed to Catholic school and the sort of lamb/wolf proverbs that he was exposed to there. He also claimed it to have similarity to the saying “bringing a knife to a gunfight.”

Context:

The phrase was said in an effort to make me laugh and bring light to the worry I’d been expressing (and it did get me to do so). It’s as if to say “well, what were you expecting to happen?”

Thoughts:

The proverb itself is innately very dark in nature, and yet hits that sort of shock humor coupled with a simple realization. The idea of having your children eaten is a terrible concept, but the ignorance/gullibility of the person who would do such is. An added factor to the proverb is the in the word choice of “buying” said wolf. There is a certain action in paying for the beast that ends up screwing you over, which bolsters and reveals the main lesson of the saying. It asks the recipient of said advice to be more pragmatically present in the day to day; to not hyperextend their own capabilities.