Tag Archives: proverb

Gift Horse

Nationality: Cuban
Age: 42
Occupation: Office Clerk
Residence: Torrance, Ca
Performance Date: 4/22/2012
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

“A caballo “regalao” no se le mira el colmillo”

English:

Don’t look at the fang of the horse that’s free.

This cuban proverb is very similar to the American saying “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.” It’s very likely that it made its way over to cuba and got muddled along in translation. My informant is a cuban resident who has lived in the U.S. since she was a baby, but has many family members from whom she has picked up sayings such as these from. As the majority of her relatives all have backgrounds as field workers and maids, she informs me that she grew up fairly poor and was taught more or less not to question it when good things came her way lest they be taken away. It was considered bad luck and bad manners to be skeptical of gifts freely given.

I don’t believe it

Nationality: Cuban
Age: 42
Occupation: Office Clerk
Residence: Torrance, Ca
Performance Date: 4/21/2012
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

“A otro perro con ese hueso”

English:

To another dog, with that bone

This cuban saying is inferring that the speaker doesn’t believe whatever the listener has said. It’s more or less saying that the listener ought to try telling their story or lie to someone else more likely to believe it. My informant heard this when she was younger and got in trouble for lying about going somewhere. Her mother, a cuban immigrant, replied with this metaphor.

 

Chinese Proverb

Nationality: Taiwanese
Age: 68
Occupation: Retired
Residence: Taipei, Taiwan
Performance Date: March 15, 2012
Primary Language: Chinese
Language: Taiwanese

“If you want to live, you have got to keep moving.”

My informant told me this proverb while she was taking me on a tour of an outdoor shopping center.  I had been really tired as we had been out for over two hours already and had asked if her if I could take a quick sitting break.  At this point, she said this proverb to me.  I asked her where she had heard it from and she told me that her friend had told her that phrase when he was trying to inspire her to exercise more.

I further asked her what the phrase meant to her.  She replied that when she first heard it, she just took on a biological interpretation of it.  In her words, she said, “People who exercise do actually live longer.”  However, after further pondering it, she felt like it was good spiritual motto for how to live her life in which she needs to continually go out or “move” in order to truly take advantage of the thrills and excitement in life. I agree with both of her interpretations of this and feel that it must have originated initially as a phrase to inspire an active lifestyle.

“All good things end”

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Filmmaker
Residence: Pasadena, CA
Performance Date: 3/27/12
Primary Language: English

We were consoling a mutual friend when I first heard my informant use this phrase. The friend’s girlfriend had just broken up with him and she had been his first serious relationship. He was heartbroken and it was a few weeks later. All this friend had talked to us about in the past few weeks was the breakup. We were having a conversation in a larger group and talking about a TV show that had been cancelled even though everyone had loved it. My informant simply said, “All good things end.” Then he looked at our friend and the three of us chuckled a little bit; the rest of the group didn’t know why but we all knew my informant was also talking about our friend’s relationship. Even though he was still depressed about the failure of said relationship, the friend found the situation funny because of how my informant had clearly intended his comment to apply to the relationship as well as the TV show.

My informant can’t remember where he first heard the phrase or if he simply created it, though I have heard it elsewhere as well, but he likes it because by stating this property of the world as a fact, it makes something difficult easier to accept. I agree with that interpretation. People want to hold onto the past, but life keeps changing and everything is ephemeral. It’s one of the hardest aspects of reality to accept. Packaging it up into a succinct expression and serving it to someone makes it seem simpler, more understandable. It shows us that we must accept that the world works this way.

It Either Will Or It Won’t

Nationality: Irish
Age: 62
Occupation: Nurse
Residence: Beverly Hills, CA
Performance Date: 4/16/12

My aunt is infamous around our family for having certain sayings and proverbs for specific situations. One of her most notorious snippets is her saying:

“It either will or it won’t”.

She is known to say this in times of complaining, uncertainty, or fear of future events. My sister, my informant, specifically remembers many times in which our aunt would say that quote to her. My sister admitted that she is a “complainer” and that she finds solace in talking about her problems out of her inability to cope with uncertainty of the future because of her perfectionist tendencies. “I remember that I would be complaining about school, assignments, thinking I might get a bad grade on a test” she said, and “Aunt Merrilee would always say ‘you either will or you won’t’ or ‘it either will or it won’t’”. It always bothered her at the time, says my sister, because it seemed a rude approach that did not truly fix the problem. But as she has grown up, she realized the truth in the quote. She told me that she sees it as our aunt’s way of saying that there is nothing you can do about it now. The event is already over. The test is already taken. There is no good that can come about by sitting around wallowing in it when it really won’t change anything. It’s a quote that both my sister and I have taken to heart, and I believe it has saved us from a lot of unnecessary negativity.

“I’ll be telling it to my kids when they’re growing up” says my sister. I smiled when she said that, seeing that this particular piece of folklore will live on for following generations.

I personally believe that this quote is a good piece of life advice that was likely created in many different areas and families across the nation, if not the globe. It is a very simple, logical explanation to issues and hardships. I would guess that it is more widely used among people with short tempers or those that don’t like to complain themselves. I believe it is a very logical explanation and a useful piece of folklore.