A Dictionary of American Proverbs

A Dictionary of American Proverbs
Author: Wolfgang Mieder
Publisher: New York : Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 1348
Release: 1992
Genre: Reference
ISBN: 0195053990

Americans have a gift for coining proverbs. "A picture is worth a thousand words" was not, as you might imagine, the product of ancient Chinese wisdom -- it was actually minted by advertising executive Fred Barnard in a 1921 advertisement for Printer's Ink magazine. After all, Americans are first and foremost a practical people and proverbs can be loosely defined as pithy statements that are generally accepted as true and useful. The next logical step would be to gather all of this wisdom together for a truly American celebration of shrewd advice.A Dictionary of American Proverbs is the first major collection of proverbs in the English language based on oral sources rather than written ones. Listed alphabetically according to their most significant key word, it features over 15,000 entries including uniquely American proverbs that have never before been recorded, as well as thousands of traditional proverbs that have found their way into American speech from classical, biblical, British, continental European, and American literature. Based on the fieldwork conducted over thirty years by the American Dialect Society, this volume is complete with historical references to the earliest written sources, and supplies variants and recorded geographical distribution after each proverb.Many surprised await the reader in this vast treasure trove of wit and wisdom. Collected here are nuggets of popular wisdom on all aspects of American life: weather, agriculture, travel, money, business, food, neighbors, friends, manners, government, politics, law, health, education, religion, music, song, and dance. And, to further enhance browsing pleasure, the editors have provided a detailed guide to the use of the work. While it's true that many of our best known proverbs have been supplied by the ever-present "Anonymous," many more can be attributed to some very famous Americans, like Ernest Hemingway, Abraham Lincoln, Benjamin Franklin, Mark Twain, J. Pierpont Morgan, Thomas Alva Edison, Abigail Adams, and Ralph Waldo Emerson, to name but a few offered in this fascinating collection.Who wouldn't want to know the origin of "the opera ain't over till the fat lady sings?" This uniquely American proverb and many more are gathered together in A Dictionary of American Proverbs. A great resource for students and scholars of literature, psychology, folklore, linguistics, anthropology, and cultural history, this endlessly intriguing volume is also a delightful companion for anyone with an interest in American culture.

Early American Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases

Early American Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases
Author: Bartlett Jere Whiting
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 626
Release: 1977
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9780674219816

p.B. J. Whiting savors proverbial expressions and has devoted much of his lifetime to studying and collecting them; no one knows more about British and American proverbs than he. The present volume, based upon writings in British North America from the earliest settlements to approximately 1820, complements his and Archer Taylor's Dictionary of American Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases, 1820-1880. It differs from that work and from other standard collections, however, in that its sources are primarily not "literary" but instead workaday writings - letters, diaries, histories, travel books, political pamphlets, and the like. The authors represent a wide cross-section of the populace, from scholars and statesmen to farmers, shopkeepers, sailors, and hunters. Mr. Whiting has combed all the obvious sources and hundreds of out-of-the-way publications of local journals and historical societies. This body of material, "because it covers territory that has not been extracted and compiled in a scholarly way before, can justly be said to be the most valuable of all those that Whiting has brought together," according to Albert B. Friedman. "What makes the work important is Whiting's authority: a proverb or proverbial phrase is what BJW thinks is a proverb or proverbial phrase. There is no objective operative definition of any value, no divining rod; his tact, 'feel, ' experience, determine what's the real thing and what is spurious."

Dictionary of Authentic American Proverbs

Dictionary of Authentic American Proverbs
Author: Wolfgang Mieder
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2021-09-17
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1800731329

Dictionary of Authentic American Proverbs offers a comprehensive reference guide for distinctly American proverbs. Compiled by Wolfgang Mieder, a key figure in the field of proverb studies, this compendium features nearly 1,500 proverbs with American origins, spanning the 17th century to present day, including a scholarly introduction exploring the history of proverbs in America, the structure and variants of these proverbs, known authors and sources, and cultural values expressed in these proverbs. Along with a comprehensive bibliography of proverb collections and interpretive scholarship, this dictionary offers a glimpse into the history of American social and cultural attitudes through uniquely American language.

A Dictionary of Anglo-American Proverbs & Proverbial Phrases, Found in Literary Sources of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

A Dictionary of Anglo-American Proverbs & Proverbial Phrases, Found in Literary Sources of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
Author: George B. Bryan
Publisher: Peter Lang
Total Pages: 890
Release: 2005
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780820479477

A Dictionary of Anglo-American Proverbs & Proverbial Phrases Found in Literary Sources of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries is a unique collection of proverbial language found in literary contexts. It includes proverbial materials from a multitude of plays, (auto)biographies of well-known actors like Britain's Laurence Olivier, songs by William S. Gilbert or Lorenz Hart, and American crime stories by Leslie Charteris. Other authors represented in the dictionary are Horatio Alger, Margery Allingham, Samuel Beckett, Lewis Carroll, Raymond Chandler, Benjamin Disraeli, Edward Eggleston, Hamlin Garland, Graham Greene, Thomas C. Haliburton, Bret Harte, Aldous Huxley, Sinclair Lewis, Jack London, George Orwell, Eden Phillpotts, John B. Priestley, Carl Sandburg, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Jesse Stuart, Oscar Wilde, and more. Many lesser-known dramatists, songwriters, and novelists are included as well, making the contextualized texts to a considerable degree representative of the proverbial language of the past two centuries. While the collection contains a proverbial treasure trove for paremiographers and paremiologists alike, it also presents general readers interested in folkloric, linguistic, cultural, and historical phenomena with an accessible and enjoyable selection of proverbs and proverbial phrases.

American Proverbs

American Proverbs
Author: Dizzy Naduka
Publisher:
Total Pages: 34
Release: 2021-03-20
Genre:
ISBN:

American Proverbs From The USA and The Americas.Would you like to know more proverbs to prepare yourself for that occasion when you might need a picturesque or poetic way to say something? Most of us are often in this type of situation. It would help if you expressed yourself in an intellectually sound way but would rather say it indirectly but still convey the right information and emotion. One of the best ways to do that is by the use of Proverbs and wise sayings. From a long time ago, humanity has used proverbs as a powerful communications tool to convey all kinds of information. This is true for happiness, situations of celebrations, caution, anger, love, hate, learning, or teaching. Although these quotes and wise sayings are ubiquitous worldwide, you will find that each group tends to have preferences for certain types of expressions. This peculiarity could be how the quotes are said, the settings that invoke them, the mood that inspires or trigger them, or any other event that makes them express their common proverbs. Proverbs are essential in an average man or woman's daily lives in this modern age where most of us are busy with the stresses of the computer and information age that we hardly have time to smell the coffee. Proverbs are usually short, simple, and generally easy to understand and a compelling way to say something shortly and concisely. These small packets of gold are typically scattered all around and often thrown around by people on different occasions, but generally difficult to find all collected in a list for people to read and use for the right events as this book has done. I decided to write this book to help you overcome the problems I often have when expressing myself using a proverb or powerful quote. By having thousands of sayings at your fingertips, as they have laid out in this book, you will quickly become used to citing sayings and quotes that will convey your intellectual and poetic capabilities to your family, friends, colleagues, and others. American Proverbs is a book like no other in the types of information that it contains. It contains mostly the sayings that are commonly used in America and other American cultures around the world. Even though it's translated into the English language here, they still carry the original American humor in them. As you will find in the other titles in this series, Proverbs of the world, the same common principles run through them. There are many different types of sayings and quotes in this book, including the following: v General Proverbsv Nature Proverbsv Earth Related Proverbsv Christian Proverbsv Motivational Proverbs Inspirational Proverbs Functional Proverbsv People Proverbsv Animal Proverbsv Bird Proverbsv River Proverbsv Travel Proverbs I firmly believe that you will find much fun, education, religion, nature, inspiration, etc., in these books of proverbs. As is stated by a common proverb, "The taste Of The Pudding, Is In The Eating." This proverb applies directly to this book and the other ones in this series. Hence, I urge you to make my day and yours by adding this book to your shopping cart and then ENJOY. Have a good day.

American Proverbs about Women

American Proverbs about Women
Author: Lois Kerschen
Publisher: Booklocker.com
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2012-06
Genre: Proverbs, American
ISBN: 9781609107635

Kerschen examines how women are treated by these popular sayings that perpetuate folk wisdom. While some are true-to-life, some are saccharine, and others are demeaning, condescending, and even violent towards women. More than 800 proverbs are categorized by type and identified according to origin.

American Proverbs About Women

American Proverbs About Women
Author: Lois Kerschen
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 212
Release: 1998-06-25
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0313091129

Proverbs supposedly contain the wisdom of the common folk—eternal truths to be passed down through the ages. They are short, often humorous, expressions that teach lessons or give practical advice, and they are perhaps the best indicators of attitudes and beliefs of any form of folklore. Not only reflecting culture, proverbs also perpetuate the cultural dictates of the past, including the fears, prejudices, and misconceptions of their predominately male authors. Because they are generalizations, proverbs sometimes impede accurate observation and analysis and stifle original thought. Like many other traditions and cultural practices, proverbs often promote misleading stereotypes of women. This reference book collects more than 800 American proverbs about women and analyzes their significance. The volume begins with introductory chapters that explore the relationship between proverbs and culture and the image of women presented in proverbs. The chapters that follow are devoted to particular categories, such as wives and 6~rriage, mothers and daughters, women as property, and old women and grandmothers. Each chapter includes a brief introductory overview and a listing of proverbs relating to the topic. The proverbs were gathered through an extensive review of journal articles, proverb dictionaries, and other literature. In addition to true proverbs, the volume includes some phrases, sayings, and proverbial comparisons. Not included are expressions that contain words like mother or daughter but do not really describe women or comment about them. The book then presents a concluding analysis of how American proverbs portray women, an alphabetical index of proverbs, and an extensive bibliography.

American Proverbs

American Proverbs
Author: Wolfgang Mieder
Publisher: Peter Lang Group Ag, International Academic Publishers
Total Pages: 406
Release: 1989
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN:

This study represents the first comprehensive treatise of American proverbs, each chapter including an interpretative essay, a special bibliography, and numerous texts in contexts. The fifteen chapters deal with the proverb in general, American proverbs in particular, proverbs of the immigrants, proverbs current in the various states, proverbs of the Native Americans, Afro-American proverbs, Benjamin Franklin's «proverbs», proverbs in prose literature, proverb poems, proverbs in popular songs, wellerisms, proverbs in comics and cartoons, proverbs in advertisements, and a special final chapter on the modern American proverb «Different strokes for different folks». A large bibliography, three indices, and forty illustrations are included.

101 American English Proverbs

101 American English Proverbs
Author: Harry Collis
Publisher: McGraw-Hill
Total Pages: 132
Release: 1992
Genre: Foreign Language Study
ISBN: 9780844254128

This text presents in everyday English 101 commonly used proverbs, enabling students to use proverbs appropriately and encouraging cross-cultural understanding.