Word: proverb
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...PROLOGUE for Eric Rohmer's situation comedy Pauline at the Beach is a proverb from Chretian de Troyes--"A Wagging Tongue Bites Itself Off." That simple phrase captures perfectly the essence of this French film, in which the adults often act like children and the children seem like mature adults. It is set at a small resort town in Brittany, where the young and old characters claim they understand what love is--they discuss it incessantly and they try to capture it. But in the end they discover they have only flirted with passion...
...will have little opportunity to extend imperial power. Meanwhile, though most of Hirohito's subjects regard him with fond bemusement, some are beginning to suggest privately that he should abdicate. But the Emperor remains steadfast. When questioned once about his long reign, His Imperial Majesty simply recited a proverb: "Not even under the heaviest snowfall will willow trees snap." -By Pico Iyer...
...culture is without proverbs, but many are poor in aphorisms, a fact that leads Critic Hugh Kenner to hail the ancient phrases as something "worth saying again and again, descending father to son, mother to daughter, mouth to mouth." Gazing at The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs, he lauds the short and simple annals of the poor. But he holds The Oxford Book of Aphorisms at the proverbial arm's length: "What the aphorisms lack is the proverb's ability to generalize. They have the air of brittle special cases: How special indeed my life is! How exceptional...
...aphorists do not enjoy the last frown. Even now, proverb makers are at work. Traditions have to begin somewhere; today folk sayings arise from economics: "There is no such thing as a free lunch"; from the comics: "Keep on truckin' "; and even from computers: "Garbage in, garbage...
Which, then, has more application to modern life, the people's phrases or the aristocrats'? Not aphorisms, says the proverb: "Fine words butter no parsnips." Not proverbs, insists Alfred North Whitehead's terse dictum: "Seek simplicity and distrust it." Still, both categories are noted not only for their concision but their consolation. Collectors of aphorisms may yet find support from the biblical proverb "Knowledge increaseth strength." As for the partisans of folk sayings, they can for once side with the fastidious William Wordsworth...