One of the more ridiculous aspects of human nature is our readiness to believe proverbs, most of which are lies or incomprehensible.
Curiosity killed the cat. What absolute bunk. A ten-ton truck or a large rock dropped from a height, possibly, but curiosity never.
In any case, the cat almost certainly had it coming to it, if recent Letters page comments are anything to go by.
I have before me the Penguin Dictionary of Proverbs, and I am heartened to tell you it is a veritable goldmine of lunacy.
He that has patience has fat thrushes for a farthing. What's that supposed to mean? I can't think of any conversational situation in which that remark could ever be inserted, sideways or end-on, without people in white coats materialising.
A moist hand argues an amorous nature. It seems to me it is more likely to argue a nasty habit, but then it's hard to break a hog of an ill custom.
I don't know whether you realise this, ladies and gentlemen, but the greedy man and the gileynour are soon agreed (it says here), and this surprises the underpants off me.
However, I am even more surprised to learn that he that has a wide therm had never a long arm. There will be a time in life when that quotation will be wonderfully apt, but I cannot conceive of it at the moment. I shall leave it bubbling in my cerebral kitchen.
He who does not kill hogs will not get black pudding. Now that I DO understand. What's it doing in this book?
There is a Scottish proverb that says: "They that bourd wi' cats, maun count on scarts." I couldn't agree less. It seems to me that one of the few things in life that we can guarantee these days is that a cat-bourder invariably goes scart-free.
A ship under sail, a man in complete armour, and a woman with great belly are three of the handsomest sights. Very likely, but I should imagine that a man in complete armour making a woman with great belly would keep folk awake o'nights.
Of all these ludicrous proverbs, perhaps this is the one that really goes to the heart like a dagger: Many tine half-mark whinger for the halfpenny thong.
What sort of buffoon comes up with a remark like that? I'll tell you something, if he'd said that to me, I would have come back quick as a flash: "This asylum was fine before you came."
