Tag Archives: proverb

You Can’t See the Forest for the Trees

Nationality: American
Age: 83
Occupation: Retired English Teacher
Residence: San Francisco, CA
Performance Date: March 21, 2015
Primary Language: English

Informant: You can’t see the forest for the trees.

The informant (my grandmother) was born and raised in Texas. She spent many years moving from place to place across the world with her husband, a banker, before settling in Connecticut long enough to work as an English teacher at the Greenwich Country Day School. She currently lives in San Francisco, CA.

The informant told me that she told this proverb to her students when they failed to see the bigger picture of her class as a whole. When students complained that endless grammar worksheets were “boring,” she pointed out that they were looking at only a tree in the larger forest; grammar worksheets were an important part of building a greater ecosystem of knowledge of the English language.

This proverb appears in John Heywood’s 1546 collection of proverbs.

Citation: Heywood, John, and Julian Sharman. The Proverbs of John Heywood. London: G. Bell and Sons, 1874. Print.

Said the Blind Man to the Deaf Monkey

Nationality: African American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: March 25, 2015
Primary Language: English

Informant H is 19 years old and was born in Inglewood CA, and moved to a place near Valencia just outside of LA soon after she was born. After 5 years, her little sister was born, then her little brother, and then her youngest sister. The family then moved to Bakersfield. H homeschooled for many years and then transitioned into a public high school.

So my Dad always says this thing, ‘Said the blind man to the deaf monkey’. And I don’t know where it comes from, he might have even made it up, but you can really use it in any case. He says that all the time and we have this running joke because I’m always like ‘that doesn’t make any sense, the man he blind…the monkey is deaf…’ You use it when you tell someone you like see, like you understand them. So you’re talking to someone and they’re like, ‘Oh I see’ and then you’d say ‘Said the blind man to the deaf monkey’. He uses it mostly to be facetious I think. I guess it’s supposed to be like when you understand but you don’t really. And he always says it with this wink and a smile. At this point he just says it to be funny, just him being himself.

 

Analysis:

This proverb is a family specific one that helps to bring the family together in a funny and lighthearted way. The informant H always laughs when she hears her Dad say it and thinks of him fondly when she tells of this proverb.   Although this proverb doesn’t teach much of a lesson, it helps to bring H and her Dad closer together through this unique and silly proverb.

A Proverb for Lost Things

Nationality: Columbian, American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 10, 2015
Primary Language: English

Informant S is 21 years old from Boise Idaho. He is a Philosophy major who also plans on attending Medical School. He is half Columbian and half American.

S: Oh God my dad would always say, ‘A place for everything and everything in its place’. Any time I ever asked where something was or um I just found something after searching, he’d get all smug and say that.

Me: Have you ever said that yourself?

S: I’ve said it to my sister a couple times to be sort of a little shit, and interestingly when my dad loses his stuff, I almost always say it. I guess you could say he was sort of trying to teach me a lesson and it annoyed me so much I started using it to him. It started to annoy him as well so I sort of got my point across.

Me: Do you think it worked?

S: No I think that fact that it was so intrusive made it so I kind of went out my way not to do it sometimes and it didn’t really stick in my memory. What’s funny is that I think it’s a pretty good lesson, maybe he could have just taught it a little better.  It was annoying but I got it, you know?

 

Analysis:

Here the informant S shares how his father tried to teach him a lesson through a proverb. S found it annoying as if the wisdom of using a well known proverb allowed his dad to be smug about telling him he shouldn’t lose things. Although proverbs are often used to teach a lesson, the informant did not enjoy being taught through a proverb and actively avoided its teachings on occasion.  The proverb did come to his mind quickly though so in that way the proverb succeeded in getting into his memory, even if its message didn’t stick.

“Max, Max, Relax” – USMC Proverb

Nationality: American
Age: 31
Occupation: USMC
Residence: California
Performance Date: 20 APR 2015
Primary Language: English

“’Max, Max, Relax.’ Has to do with the PFT. You max the pull-ups, the crunches, and then walk the run and still get a first class. You can be, like, yoked, and screw the run. Cause who wants to run 3 miles?”

 

This proverb, “max, max, relax”, is something I have seen and everyone in the Marine Corps acknowledges. It’s true. No one wants to run three miles. So we all just bust out on the pull-ups and crunches, and then “do our best” on the run.

“If you try, you may succeed.”

Nationality: Japanese
Age: 21
Occupation: International Student
Residence: Calabasas, CA / Hokkaido, Japan
Performance Date: 4/13/2014
Primary Language: Japanese
Language: English

About the Interviewed: Yuki is a Japanese student  from the University of Hokkaido, currently studying western art and culture. She’s currently participating in an American homestay at a friend’s house in Southern California. Yuki is ethnically Japanese, and she’s said that her family has lived in Japan for a long time. She’s about 21 years old.

“為せば成る                                   Nasebanaru  
為さねば成らぬ何事も              Nasaneba naranu nanigoto mo
成らぬは人の為さぬなりけり”    Naranu wa hito no nasanunarikeri

This was a cool proverb that my subject, Yuki, shared with me. Transliterated, it means something like:

If you try, you may succeed.
If you don’t try, you will not succeed. This is true for all things.
Not succeeding is the result of not trying.

She told me that she didn’t come up with it, but rather that it was a proverb from the Edo period of Japan. She said that her parents repeated it to her a lot.

One thing I found striking about this proverb, was how it embodies a drive for success that addresses a fractures ego. Someone who tells themselves they cannot, according to the verse, will not succeed. It takes an open mind and a strong determination to find success in something, at least that’s what I get from it.