CHAPTER II.

STYLE, STRUCTURE AND TRANSLATION

OF THE ENGLISH PROVERBS

2.1. Stylistic Devices in English Proverbs

Proverbs are short sentences that express a well known truth, a moral, or a common statement
familiar to experience. They have a didactic and moralizing aim. They teach us how to live, how to
overtake difficulties, how to be wise, kind, how to make our live better. To achieve this aim more
effectively proverbs should stand out against other phraseological units, such as idioms, winged
words, mottoes, slogans, and so on. Different types of stylistic devices are used in formation of
English proverbs. Among them we may distinguish phonetic, lexical, syntactical and lexico-
syntactical stylistic devices. We should take into consideration the fact that proverbs are usually
spoken than written. That's why they must be vivid and easily memorized and therefore they depend
on various stylistic devices and first of all on phonetic ones.
It should be mentioned the fact that every good writer will make use of proverbs. They are the
natural ways in which speech develops. Proverbs and sayings have certain purely linguistic features,
which must always be taken into account in order to distinguish them from ordinary sentences.
Proverbs are brief statements showing in condensed form the accumulated life experience of the
community and serving as conventional practical symbols for abstract ideas. They are usually
didactic and image bearing. Many of them through frequency of repetition have became polished
and wrought into verse-like shape.37 The main feature distinguishing proverbs and sayings from
ordinary utterances remains their semantic aspect. Their literal meaning is suppressed by what may
be termed their transferred meaning. In other words, one meaning (literal) is the form for another
meaning (transferred), which contains the idea. Proverbs and sayings are the concentrated wisdom
of the people, and if used appropriately, will never lose their freshness and vigour. The most
noticeable thing about the functioning of sayings, proverbs and catch phrases is that they may be
handled not in their fixed form but with modifications (see the examples at the end of Chapter I).
These modifications, however, will never break away from the invariants.
The invariant model of a word combination and its variant ceases to be perceived by the
reader. The predictability of a variant of a word combination is lower in comparison with its
invariant. Therefore, the use of such a unit in a modified form will always arrest our attention,
causing a much closer examination of the wording of the utterance in order to get at the idea. Thus,
the proverb 'all is not gold that glitters' appears in Byron's Don Juan in the following form and
environment where at first the meaning may seem obscure:38
"How all the needy honourable misters,
Each out-at-elbow peer or desperate dandy,
The watchful mothers, and the careful sisters
 (Who, by the by, when clever, are more handy
At making matches where "t’is gold that glisters"
Than their he relatives), like flies o'er candy
Buzz round the Fortune with their busy battery,
To turn her head with waltzing and with flattery."
Out of the well-known proverb Byron builds a periphrasis, the meaning of which is deciphered
two lines below: 'the Fortune', that is, 'a marriageable heiress').38
We shall take only a few of the numerous examples of the stylistic use of proverbs and sayings to
illustrate the possible ways of decomposing the units in order simply to suggest the idea behind
them: "Come!" he said, "milk's spilt." (Galsworthy) from “It is no use crying over spilt milk!').
Some more examples: But to all that moving experience there had been a shadow (a dark lining to
the silver cloud), insistent and plain, which disconcerted her." (Maugham) (from 'Every cloud has a
silver lining'). "We were dashed uncomfortable in the frying pan, but we should have been a
damned sight worse off in the fire." (Maugham) (from 'Out of the frying-pan into the fire'). "You
know which side the law's buttered." (Galsworthy) (from 'His bread is buttered on both sides').
This device is used not only in the belles-lettres style.38
Here are some instances from newspapers and magazines illustrating the stylistic use of
proverbs, sayings and other word combinations "...and whether the Ministry of Economic Warfare
is being allowed enough financial rope to do its worst" (from 'Give a thief rope enough and he'll
hang himself). "The waters will remain sufficiently troubled for somebody's fishing to be
profitable" (Economist) (from 'It is good fishing in troubled waters'). One of the editorials had
the following headline: "Proof of the Pudding" (from 'The proof of the pudding is in the
eating') Here is a recast of a well-known proverb used by an advertising agency: "Early to bed
and early to rise No use - unless you advertise" (from 'Early to bed and early to rise Makes a
man healthy, wealthy and wise')39 Thus, of the invariant proverb which possesses an inherent
stylistic connotation is to further intensify it to produce a strong impression on the listener/reader.
2.2. Lexical and Stylistic Means of Proverb Formation.
The main lexical stylistic means are repetition and comparison.
2.2.1. Repetition has the function of intensification. The lexemes which repeat, do not stand
next to each other. There are different types of repetitions. 1. The repetition of the lexeme, which
stands at the beginning: "In London they formed polite queues... a nice orderly version of first
come, first served."(M.A.Sharp, "Sunflower") „În Londra ei au format cozi rafinate ... drăguţă
versiune ordonată, pe rînd ca la moară." "They are as heaven made them, handsome enough if they
be good enough; for handsome is as handsome does."(Goldsmith "Vicar of Wakefîeld") „Ei sunt de
parcă paradisul i-a făcut, destul de frumos dacă ei sunt destul de capabiliş frumos e cel ce bine
face." Such carpenters, such chips. - Cum e sacul şi petirul. Like cures like. - Rău cu rău se
vindecă. Like begets like. - Fructul de la copac departe nu cade. Like will to like. - Cine se
aseamănă, se adună. Diamond like diamond. - Cu diamant se face diamantul. "He believed he
caught in the receiver the metallic sound of a chamber being checked, Diamond cut diamond, he
thought and smiled."(Greene)
2. The repetition of the lexeme which stands in the second place. "I’m opening two new
branches next week. They laughed at me when I first came over here. They said I’d go bankrupt.
I’ve turned their silly old methods upside down. He laughts best who laughs last."(Mougham) „Au
descoperit două organizaţii noi săptămâna trecută. Ei au râs de mâine că eu i-am întrecut.. Rîde bine
acel, ce râde la urmă." "A slight mist clouded Guy's blue eyes as he took his wife's hand and
answered gently: "Say no more, my dear; we'll let bygones be bygones"(Noms) „O ceaţă subţire a
innovat ochii albaştri a lui Guy când el a luat mâna soţiei sale şi a răspuns gentil: „Ce-a fost a fost
să nu mai dezgropăm morţii."
3.The repetition of the lexeme which stands in the third place. What is sauce for the goose
is sauce for the gander. - Ce-i bun pentru mine e bun şi pentru tine.
It is possible to repeat the analytical form of the verb: He that will steal an egg will steal an
ox. - Cine fură azi un sac, mâine fură un gânsac.
4. The repetition of the lexeme which stands in the fourth place. This type of repetition is
very rarely used. If two men ride on a horse, one must ride behind. - Când doi merg pe un cal unul
trebuie să şeadă din urmă.
5. The repetition of two lexemes. " Out of sight out of mind. - Ochii care nu se văd se uită. In
the proverb: In for a penny, in for a pound. - Ai intrat în horă trbuie să joci, three lexemes repeat.
"Better late than never, however, with a stitch in time."(Morning Star)
6. Frequent repetition. This type is rarely used and it has a humorous effect. Don't trouble
trouble until trouble troubles you. - Nu deranja necazul, pînă necazul singur nu te deranjează.
2.2.2. Comparison. 1.Antonvmous comparison, i.e. the comparison of the lexemes which
are antonyms out of the given proverb. A black hen lays a white egg. - Vaca-i neagră, dar laptele-i
alb. He that spares the bad injures the good. - Cine jeleşte răul, păgubeşte binele.
Antonymous comparisons are widely used in comparative proverbs. Better reign in hell than
serve in heaven. - Mai bines să domneşti în iad, decât să slujeşti în paradis. In the last proverb we
see the antonymous combination of the lexemes "reign in hell" and "serve in heaven". We can have
a combination of repetition with antonymous comparison. He that never climbed, never fell - Acel
ce nu s-a urcat, niciodată nu a căzut; nu greşeşte acel, care nimic nu face.
2. The comparison of combination of lexemes which are not antonymous out of the given
proverb. We have a proverb in English - A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, I don't know
anything about that afterword". I only know I would like to live another ten years" (G. Greene,
"Honorary Consul") „Avem un proverb englez - Nu da vrabia din mână pe cioara din cer" Nu ştiu
nimic despre acest „viitor". Ştiu numai că vreau să trăiesc alţi zece ani". The same comparison is
found in comparative proverbs. Better an egg to-day than a hen to-morrow. - Mai bine un ou azi
decât o găină mâine. Half a loaf is better than no bread. - Mai bine o jumătate de pâine decât deloc.
2.2.3. Euphonious (euphorical) means.
Euphonious means consist of rhymic consonance, alliteration and assonance, which are the
main expressive means. With the help of them the proverbs are remembered more quickly and easy.
Rhymic consonance is widely spread in English proverbs. There are rhymes of different types.
1. Complete male rhyme. In this rhyme the repetition is created by monosyllabic lexeme by
coincidence of vowel of rhymic lexeme and all other sounds. This type is often used. Look at some
examples. A little pot is soon hot. - Oala mică repede fierbe. As y ou sow, you shall mow. - Ce ai
semănat, aceea ai crescut. When the cat's away, the mice mll play. - Când pisica nu-i acasă joacă
şoarecii pe masă.
2. Exact or identical male rhyme. The consonant, rowel and other sounds coincide in this
type. Words cui (hurt) more than swords. - Limba taie mai rău ca sabia.
3. Mixed rhyme. These rhymes in proverbs are rarely used. When Adam delved and Eve span
who was then a gentleman? - Dacă ar fi fost toţi bogaţi, cine ar săpa ogoarele?
The sound repetition is created by the monosyllabic and polysyllabic lexemes.
"A spirit fatal to the whole system of the Middle Ages breathed in the popular rime which
condensed the leveling doctrine of John Ball: "When Adam delved and Eve span, who was the
gentleman?" (J.R. Green, Short History of English People) „Dacă ar fi fost toţi bogaţi, cine ar săpa
ogorul?"
4. Complete female rhyme. This rhyme is more rarely used than the male rhyme. In the
complete female rhyme one stressed and one unstressed syllable are repeated where the rowel
stressed syllable coincides with the other following sounds. Birds of feather flock together. - Cei ce
se potrivesc lesne se-împrietenesc. He that mischief hatches, mischief catches. - Nu săpa groapa
altui, căci nimereşti singur în ea.
5. Incomplete female rhyme. This type of rhyme is used very rarely. Still waters have deep
bottoms. - Apele line sunt adânci.
There are some rhymes as compound rhyme, i.e. the rhyming of one lexeme with two
lexemes: Two much of one thing is good for nothing. - Puţin câte puţin. - logical rhyme: The proof
of the pudding is in the eating.
2.2.4. Alliteration. 1. The repetition of one sound. a) Repetition of consonant in the first and
the last words. Look before you leap. - De şapte ori să măsori şi o dată să tai. (Nu zice hop până nu-
i sări); Barking dogs seldom bite. - Câinele care latră nu muşcă.
b) Repetition of consonant in the second and in the last words. "The ball rolled down to her as
if it understood. Every bullet has its billef” (Joyce, Ulysses, 366). „Bila s-a rostogolit în jos la ea, de
parcă ar înţelege. De la soartă nu fugi". Every day has his day. - Totul are timpul său. c) Among
these two subtypes there are some alliterative proverbs in which two or three consonants repeat in
different lexemes. Dumb dogs are dangerous. - Nu ai frică de câinele care latră.
2. Repetition of two sounds. Plenty is no plague. - Mulţimea nu-i ciumă.
Combination of alliteration with rhyme. Beauty lies in lover's eyes. - Frumuseţea minte în
ochii dragostei. A stitch in time saves nine. - Spărtura până-i mică trebuie cârpită. That which is
done on time, saves much labour afterwords. Many a little makes a mickle. - Puţin şi des face mult.
Assonance is the repetition of vowels, it is rarely used in English proverbs. Small rain lays great
dust. - Ploicică mică potoleşte vântul cel mai puternic. Combination of alliteration and assonance.
All roads lead to Rome: and even animal individuality throws a ray on human problems". (J.S.
Huxley, „Individual in Animal kingdom") „Toate drumurile merg (duc la) spre Roma: şi deseori
individualitatea animalelor aruncă o rază asupra problemelor omeneşti". "Come, come, master, let
us get afloat ... Time and tide wait for no man" (W. Scott, Nigel) „Vină, vină, stăpâne, să ne dăm
drumul pe apă ... Timpul nu aşteaptă".
Lexical and Euphonious Means of Proverb Formation. Lexical and euphonious expressive
means go together with proverb formation. Alliterative, rhymic repetition and the comparison of
antonyms and rhyme refer to these means.
Alliterative repetition is for laconic elliptical proverbs as: In for a penny, in for a pound.
"He had so deep a reverence for the clergy, that it never entered into his mind that perhaps, after all,
it was "like people, like priesf (R. Heath, English Peasant") „El avea aşa aşa un respect adânc faţă
de cler, că aceasta niciodată nu i-a venit în cap că probabil, după toate, era ca preotul si clericul". No
cross, no crown. - Fără muncă nu-i nici rezultat.
No song, no supper. - Dacă vrei să mănânci colaci, nu dormi pe sobă. Alliterative repetition is rarely
used in long proverbs: Take care of the pence, and the pounds will take care of themselves.
The rhymic repetition is used in laconic proverbs. Fast bind, fast find. - Paza bună, trece
primejdia rea. A penny saved is a penny gained. - Un ban economisit, e un ban câştigat. In time of
prosperity friends will be plenty, in time of adversity not one among twenty. - Mulţi prieteni la bine,
şi nici unul la rău. Money spent on the brain is never spent in vain. - Banii cheltuiţi pe învăţătură nu
se vor pierde niciodată.
In some proverbs we can see the combination of antonyms with rhyme. A light purse is a
heavy curse. - Cel mai mare rău e atunci când bani nu sunt. Little strokes fell great oaks. - Răbdarea
şi munca totul trec.
There are proverbs with synonymous lexemes and combinations of lexeme, which also can be
rhymic. "None the less I don't envy the traveler. "East West, home's best” (E.V. Lucas, "Verena in
Midst") „Deloc nu invidiez călătorii, în ospeţie e bine , dar ca acasă nu-i nicăieri". Better the foot
slip than the tongue strip. - Cuvântul nu-i vrabie, zboară, nu-1 mai prinzi. Among widely spread
English proverbs there are some long proverbs as: a bird is worth two in the bush. — Nu da vrabia
din mână pe cioara din păr.
He should have a long spoon that sups with the devil - Când mănânci cu dracul trebuie să ai
lingură lungă. But the most proverbs are short and laconic utterances.
Above these given examples we see that ellipses is more widely spread in the proverbs than
among other types of phraseological units. The long proverbs, which consist of more than 10
lexemes have a tendency to become old. A great number of proverbs of this kind are registered in
Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs as old ones.
The long proverbs have the same meaning in the short ones: Measure the cloth ten times, they
can't cut it but once = twice and cut once - Şapte ori măsoară şi odată taie.
Thus, the proverb is the main part of phraseological English structure. Dealing with proverbs
we often come across such phenomena as rhyme (A) alliteration (B) and assonance (C). A. There is
a considerably great number of English proverbs, in which rhyme, is used the repetition of identical
or similar terminal combinations of words, in this regard they have some resemblance to verses. But
in contradistinction to the verses, which are as a rule represented by several simple sentences or one
compound or complex sentence with similar parts and where rhyming words are placed at the end
of the lines, proverbs are mainly characterized by so called internal rhyme, i.e. the rhyming words
are placed within the line. Here are some examples:
"I saw you toss the toss the kites on high
And blow the birds about the sky;
And all around I heard you pass,
Like ladies' skirts across the grass..."("The Wind" by R.L. Stevenson)
or "Young Henry was a brave a youth
As ever graced a martial story,
And Jane was fair as lovely truth:
She sighed for Love, and he for Glory" ("Love and Glory" by Th. Dibdin)
Compare them with some proverbs: Walnuts and pears you plant for your heirs; What can't
be cured must be endured; A stitch in time saves nine; Wishes do not wash dishes; Great boast,
small roast. Internal rhyme breaks the line into two distinct parts. At the same time it consolidates
more strongly the ideas expressed in these two parts.
Nevertheless, as we know, there is no rule without exception, and we may come across a
special type of proverbs, determined as "traditional country proverbs which relate to husbandry, the
seasons, and the weather" ("The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs" by John Simpson, New
York, 1987). Such proverbs are very similar to verses, e.g.: When the oak is before the ash, then
you will only get a splash; when the oak is before the oak, then you may expect a soak. If you
gently touch a nettle, it'll sting you for your pains; grasp it like a lad of mettle, an' as soft as silk
remains. If Candlemas day be sunny and bright, winter will have another flight; if Candlemas day
be cloudy with rain, winter is gone, and won't come again.
The various types of rhyme can be found in English proverbs. They can be classified as
follows: 1.complete rhymes: a)male rhymes; b) female rhymes 2.incomplete rhymes a)consonant
rhymes; b) vowel rhymes; 3.mixed rhymes; 4.exact or identical male rhyme; 5.complete rhymes
and first of all male rhymes are the most widely - spread among them. The typical feature of this
rhyme is the repetition created by monosyllabic lexeme by coincidence of vowel of rhyme lexeme
and all the sounds. Here are some vivid examples: East or West - home is best; Good health is
above wealth. Another type of complete rhyme - complete female rhyme is also often used, but
boss than the male one. In this rhyme one stressed and one unstressed syllable are repeated where
the vowel stressed syllable coincides with other following sounds, e.g., Best defense is offence; Eat
at pleasure, drink with measure; Birds of feather flog together.
Incomplete rhymes are not so expressive and vivid as the above mentioned types and as a
result they are not so spread in the formation of English proverbs.
In incomplete consonant rhymes the consonants of the syllables in corresponding words are
identical, but the vowels may be different, e.g., every bullet has its billet; many a mickle makes a
muckle; in for a penny, in for a pound.
In incomplete vowel rhymes it's vice versa. Here we observe concordance in vowels and
disparity in consonants, e.g., I penny saved is a penny gained; over shoes, over boots; -who breaks,
pays.
Another type of rhyme used in proverbs is mixed rhyme. The distinctive feature of this
rhyme is that the sound repetition is created by monosyllabic and polysyllabic lexemes, e.g., two in
distress make trouble less; an apple a day keeps the doctor away; a friend in need is a friend
indeed.
In some proverbs one may come across exact (identical) male rhyme. This type is
characterized by the coincidence of consonant, vowel and other sounds in the corresponding
words. In the following proverbs we this of rhyme, e.g., there's many a slip between the cup and
the lip; words rut (hurt) more than swords. This type is very rarely used in English proverbs.
Besides all these already mentioned rhymes we may observe other rhymes, for example,
compound rhyme. This type consists in rhymes of one lexeme with 2 lexemes, as in the following
instance: Too much of one thing is good for nothing.
The so called eye-rhyme may be set against all other rhymes because here not the sounds but
the letters are identical, e.g., a fools bolt is soon shot; at takes all sorts to make a world; harm
watch, harm catch. In contradistinction to other- type which can be perceived in reading aloud, eye
rhyme can only be observed in the written form. That's why this rhyme is used very rarely in
proverbs and is not a typical one.
 So, we may come to conclusion that rhyme is one of those stylistic devices which are very
often used in English proverbs. There is a great variety of rhymes that can be observed in proverbs
such as: complete and incomplete, mixed, exact male rhymes and other. In more than half of
rhymed proverbs complete male and female rhymes are used.
It is interesting that applying to other languages, like Russian, we observe that here as
well in many cases rhyme is maintained in proverbs of both the source and the target languages:
Man proposes, God disposes. Человек предполагает, а бог располагает. Кто первый палку взял,
тот и капрал. Eat at pleasure, drink with measure_.Xne6 на ноги ставит, а вино - валит. He that
will thrive, must rise at five. Кто хочет преуспевать, пораньше должен вставать.
No wonder that rhyme is so frequently used in proverbs, it plays a very important role.
Rhyme makes metrical division of proverbs into rhythmical units more precise. The rhythm of
proverbs becomes more perceptible. Besides the rhythmical function rhyme has also the function of
semantic singling out of words rhymed words are especially noticeable and draw our attention.
Alliteration aims at imparting a melodic effect to a proverb. Alliteration is the repetition of similar
consonant sounds in close succession, particularly at the beginning of successive words. Different
types of alliteration are used in proverbs. These are the repetitions of one sound and of two sounds:
2.3. Lexical and Lexico-Syntactic Stylistic Devices

Apart from Phonetic and Syntactical stylistic devices, Lexical stylistic devices are also rather
frequently used in the formation of English proverbs. The main lexical means are metaphor (A),
personification (B), antonomasia (C), allegory (D) and simile (E).40
A. The stylistic device of metaphor is based on the interrelation between the dictionary and
contextual logical meanings of a word. Various objects, things, actions may possess similar
features. On the basis of this similarity and association transference of meaning is possible. In other
words the essence of metaphor is that words denoting one object are transferred to others in order
to indicate a resemblance between them.
There are a lot of proverbs with metaphorical meanings of its components. As a rule metaphor
in English proverbs is embodied in noun, e.g., Money is the root of all evil; Brevity is the soul of
wit; Life is not a bed of roses. Leal without knowledge is a runaway horse; nothing is impossible to
a -willing heart. In the last 3 examples metaphor is expressed by word - combination.
We may also come across proverbs, in which metaphors are embodied in adjective (Hatred is
blind, as well as love} and verb (Familiarity breeds contempt).
There are proverbs with two metaphorical components. Such proverbs are comparatively not
very spread e.g., Speech is silver, but silence is gold; Faults are thick were love is thin; That which
was bitter to endure may be sweet to remember.
The main function of metaphor is to suggest an analogy. Metaphor is one of the most
powerful means of making something clearer and more vivid by a single word or two. By the help
of this stylistic device we may create a concrete image of person, object, phenomenon or abstract
idea which needs illustration. It has also an additional effect. Metaphor can evoke some mental
images. Mental images often have powerful emotional qualities. That is why it is frequently used in
proverbs. Proverbs with metaphorical components are more comprehensible, vivid and memorable.
B. We may also observe the resemblance between inanimate objects and
human qualities. Then it is personification. Personification in proverbs is mostly
expressed in verbs e.g., Time cures all things; Money talks; Time flies; He dances
well to whom fortune pipers; A fool's tongue runs before his wit; fear has a quick
ear. The stylistic device of personification is a distinctive feature of many English
proverbs.
C. Antonomasia is a lexical stylistic device cased on the interaction between
the logical and nominal meanings of the word. Antonomasia is a figure of speech
in which proper name is used as a common noun. It requires fixed logical
associations between the name itself and the qualities of its bearer. It may occur
only as a result of long and frequent usage. The number of proverbs, in which
antonomasia can be observed, is not big and this fact distinguishes them from the
others. Study these examples: Caesar's wife must be above suspicion; Bacchus has
drowned more men than Neptune. Bacchus-God of wine, symbolizes here
drunkenness and Neptune- God of sea - the deep. What will Mrs. Grundy say?Mrs. Grundy is a
character from Thomas Morton's play "Speed the Plough". She never appears on the scene, but her
neighbour Dame Ashfleld is constantly worried about her opinion. This name became the symbol of
convention and correct manners. Ever Homer sometimes nods. Even the best, or cleverest, of people
have lapses, make mistakes (Oxford Dictionary of English Idioms). Adam's ale is the best brew.
Adam's ale means water. If such proper names as Jack, Jill, Joan are used in proverbs, we speak of
common, ordinary people, e.g., Jack of all trades, and master of none, Jack of all trades - a person
who has the ability to do many different kinds of work, although not necessarily very well. Jack is
as good as his master - unemployment employee is not, or need not necessarily be, inferior to his
employer; an employee's worth is equal to that of his employer (Oxford Dictionary of English
Idioms). Every Jack has his Jill Jack is no judge of Jill's beauty; Joan's as good as my lady in the
dark.
D. There is a variety of antonomasia called allegory. In is akin to metaphor but in
contradistinction to the latter it has a definite symbolic meaning. Allegory is a stylistic device in
which words denoting concrete notions express some abstract ideas. Allegory is a remarkable
feature for a lot of proverbs. Instruction in them is given in a figurative form, e.g. All is not gold
that glitters. Actually we do not speak about gold and its glitter. The sense of this proverb is that
smth/smb may not be so good, valuable, admirable etc. as it/he appears to be on the surface; beauty
is but lonely skin deep. (Oxford Dictionary of English Idioms). Every cloud has a silver lining -
Something good will always come from a different or unpleasant moment, situation, etc. (Longman
Dictionary of Idioms). Still waters run deep - A person who is quiet and says little often hides deep
feelings or a lot of knowledge of subject (Longman Dictionary of Idioms).
In allegory names of animals can be also used. In this case they symbolize some qualities,
relations, phenomena, etc., typical both for animals and people e.g., Birds of feather flock together
- People who have the some interests, ideas, etc. are attracted to each other and stay close together.
Let sleeping dogs lie - Don't look for trouble on purpose, don't interrupt or trouble a person,
situation, etc. when this is likely to cause disorder. It is useless to flog a dead horse - It is useless to
spend one's time and energy in promoting some activity, or belief that is already accepted, or
widely rejected or out dated. We may observe the usage of allegory in proverbs very often. This
stylistic device strengthens the impact of logical content of proverbs and makes them more
colourful and emotional.
E. A great number of English proverbs are based on simile. Comparative proverbs are
differentiated into simple (1) and complex sentences (2).
1. Simple comparative sentences. There are various ways of forming comparison in such
sentences: a) by the help of combination of adjective (adverb) in comparative degree + "than", e.g.,
false friends are worse than open enemies; Blood is thicker than water; Actions speak louder than
words. This type of simile is one of the mostly spread in English proverbs; b) by means of the
construction "as" + adjective + "as", which is also frequently used in proverbs, e.g., A miss is as
good as a mile; Enough is as good as a feast; Hatred is blind as well as love; c) with the word
"like", e.g., No wisdom like silence; There is place like home; Nothing succeeds like success.
2. Complex comparative sentences are of four types: 1) The first sentence beginning with "as"
proceeds the second one, with begins with "so", e.g., as a man lives, so shall he die; As the call, so
the echo; As the tree, so the fruit. 2) The both sentences begin with the word "like", e.g., Like
father, like son; Like priest, like people; Like teacher, like pupil. Such proverbs are not widely
spread. 3) The first sentence is followed by the second one, beginning with "as", e.g., A thief knows
a thief as a wolf knows a wolf; When at Rome do as the Romans do; The devil is not so black as he
is painted. 4) The both sentences begin with "so", e.g., So many countries, so many customs; So
many men, so many minds; So much to do, so little done. These complex sentences consist of two
elliptical simple sentences.
Simile is the device which is frequently used in English proverbs. By Means of comparison
the necessary words can stand out from the others. As we know some things or phenomena are
easier comprehensible while compared. If we want to characterize something it may to necessary
not to find resemblance between it and something else, but to find points of contrast. Then we may
speak of antonymous comparison. The comparison of the lexemes, which are antonyms, is used in
many proverbs, e.g., Small rain lays great dust; Great talkers are little doers; A little body often
harbours a great soul; Better to reign in hell, than serve in heaven. In the last two examples there
are antonymous word -combinations, correspondingly: "a little body" "a great soul" and "reign in
hell" -"serve in heaven".
In some proverbs we may observe such lexico-syntactical device as antithesis. It is akin to
antonymous comparison but it is moulded in parallel constructions. The antagonistic features of two
objects or phenomena are mostly easily perceived when they stand out in similar -structures. Look
at these examples: United we stand, divided we fall; The more haste, the less speed; You win a few,
you lose a few. So far as antithesis is founded on parallel construction it has two main functions in
proverbs: rhythm-forming and comparative function.
2.4. Morphological Constituents of Proverbs. Due to the fact that proverbs are a specific
kind of sayings expressed in units of speech, i.e. sentences, as every sentence they are built up of
units of language, i.e. words. Traditionally words are divided into grammatical classes named "parts
of speech". Parts of speech fall into notional and functional. The former are considered to be
changeable by their forms possessing complete nominative meaning and performing self -
dependent functions in the sentence; the latter are inchangeable bearing incomplete nominative
meaning and having non-self independent mediatory syntactic functions51. The class of notional
parts of speech is made up of the noun, the verb, the adjective, the adverb, the pronoun and the
numeral. Articles, prepositions, conjunctions, particles, modal words, and interpositions, are
referred to functional parts of speech. Both the sets are represented in proverbs. The majority of
English proverbs contain both the notional and the functional parts of speech in their structure, but a
number of proverbs, quite a small number, are made up only of notional words, e.g.: barking dogs
seldom bite; money begets money; little strokes fell great oaks.
As to the functional parts of speech the great variety of them is present in English proverbs.
Both definite and indefinite articles accompanying the nouns are frequently used, e.g.: A bird in the
hand is worth two in the bush; A friend to all is a friend to none; The leopard cannot change its
spots. Numerous prepositions can be found in English proverbs, e.g.: Charity begins at home;
There is no fire without smoke; There's many a slip between the cup and the lip.
Conjunctions are as a rule used in composite sentences, e.g.: Take care of the pence and the
pounds will take care of themselves; Scratch my back and I'll scratch yours; Strike while the iron is
not. Though they are also found in simple sentences, e.g.: Slow and steady wins the race; time and
tide wait for no man; Life is but a span.
Particles are represented just by 'to' preceding the infinitive, e.g.: It is better to give than to
take; It takes all sorts to make a world; Live not to eat, but eat to live.
Among modal words only words of negation may be found in English proverbs, e.g.: There
is no rule without exception; The devil is not so black as he is painted.
 Interjections being typical of spontaneous unprepared dialogical speech are not used within
proverbs. All the notional parts of speech are represented in the formation of English proverbs,
each of them playing its own peculiar syntactic roles. The most important among them are, of
course, the verb and the noun. Every proverb is formed either, at least, by one of them, or by both
of them. Just a small number of English proverbs do not contain noun in their structure. The
functions of the noun, i.e. subject, object, attribute and predicative are either performed by other
parts of speech or are not necessary at all, e.g.: Easy come, easy go; III gotten, ill spent; Look
before you leap.
The Noun is mostly absent in imperative sentences. In another type of elliptical sentences the
link verb be is omissed from the construction. It is quite evident and if necessary can be easily
restored, it is not used for the sake of brevity and laconism, e.g.: After death the doctor; Better late
than never; all in good time.
The omission of the verb is typical of many proverbs formed by parallel constructions, e.g.:
New lords, new laws; Like father, like son; In for a penny, in for a pound; Out of sight, out of mind;
Over shoes, over boots. Such an omission of the verb contributes not only to the brevity of proverbs
but also to their vividness, brightness, it adds emotional colouring and makes them sound more
emphatic. Despite the fact that it is omitted in a number of proverbs, the verb still remains the most
important part of speech for their formation. It not only bears its own lexical meaning but also
performs grammatical and syntactic functions coordinating all other members of the sentence and
distributing their roles. No wonder that the French linguist Tesniere, who worked a lot on the verb
called it "minidrama". The verb is perhaps the most complicated and controversial part of speech,
having a large number of its categories. Speaking about the verb we should first of all state the fact
that two sets of verbs are distinguished: the finite forms of the verb ('finites') and the non finite
forms ('verbids') whose forms and functions differ from each other. Now let's look how both the sets
are used in English proverbs.
The Finite Forms of the Verb. Their generalized meaning is process presented dynamically,
i.e. developing in time. The only function in the sentence is that of verb-predicate. The finites have
six grammatical categories: two of them being reflected from the noun or the pronoun in the
sentence, i.e. the categories of the person and number, and the other four are imminent categories:
tense, aspect, voice and mood. As to the categories of number and person they can be observed in
Present Simple tense only within the third person singular, e.g.: Fortune favors the bold; Appetite
comes with eating; Practice makes perfect; Charity begins at home; All is well that ends well In the
Past Simple tense the category of number is rendered only in the verb be in the opposition of its two
forms: was for the singular versus were for the plural. This can be observed just in few proverbs,
e.g.: The golden age was never the present age; He who pleased everybody died before he was
born; When I lent I had a friend; when I asked he was unkind.
 The category of person in English is also reflected in Future tenses by the opposition of
auxiliary verb shall for the first person (singular and plural) versus will for the second and the third
persons (singular and plural). Due to the fact that the subject in proverbs stands most of all in 3 rd
person and almost never in the first this opposition is not found within the Future tense in English
proverbs, e.g.: He who chatters to you will chatter of you; The fire which warms us at a distance,
will burn us when near; In the end things will mend. Thus, we can say that the categories of person
and number are mainly rendered in the Present Simple in the proverbs.
The category of tense is innate for the finite forms of the verb. According to Blokh 52 three
tenses are distinguished within this category: the Past Simple tense, the Present Simple tense and
the Future Simple tense. Among these tenses mainly the Present Simple expresses the idea of
constancy and unchangeability which is characteristic of the utterances of general truth. So far as
proverbs are just a kind of such utterances this tense is very often used in them, e.g.: Fools rush in
where angels fear to tread; A rolling stone gathers no moth; A bad penny always comes back; He
who laughs last laughs longest; Nothing succeeds like success; Birds of feather flock together;
Extremes meet; we soon believe what we desire; He dances well, to whom the fortune pipes;
actions speak louder than words.
The Past Simple Tense, which is retrospective as refered to the moment of speech, in proverbs
denoted some facts experienced or observed somewhen in the past, e.g.: Too much curiosity lost
Paradise; If you want a pretence to whip a dog say that he ate a frying-pan; He who pleased
everybody died before he was born; When I lent I had a friend; when I asked he was unkind.
The Past Simple Tense is also used in proverbs expressing some general truth, and in these
cases it can be easily replaced by the Present Simple tense without changing its sense, e.g.:
Curiosity killed the cat => Curiosity kills the cat; The golden age was never the present age —>
The golden age is never the present age; He who never climbed never fell -> He who never climbs
never falls; A bad sharer never had a good sickle -> A bad sharer never has a good sickle.
The Future Simple Tense that has a prospective evaluation is often used in imperative
proverbs, e.g.: take care of the pence and the pounds will take care of themselves; Don't make
yourself a mouse or the cat will eat you; Do as most men do, then the most men will speak well of
you; Stretch your hand no further than your sleeve will reach; Throw nature out of the door, it will
come back again through the window. The Future Simple is also typical of many proverbs
expressing a certain condition, e.g.: Passion will master you, if you don't master your passion; If
one believes that, one will believe anything; You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours; Roll my log
and I will roll yours; Grasp the nettle and it won't sting you. In the following examples Future
Simple points at inevitability of something and here we are fully confident that it will be so without
a fail, e.g.: He who chatters to you will chatter of you; In the end things will mend; An old dog will
learn no new tricks; the fish will soon be caught that nibbles at every bait; Where the water is
shallow no vessel will ride; Nature will have its course; What is bread in the bone will never come
out of the flesh; He that will steal, a pin, will steal a pound. As it is known there are two ways of
indicating time in the English language: grammatical - with the help of the tense of the verb, and
lexical - by means of adverbs and nouns denoting time, e.g. now, today, tomorrow, yesterday, at
the moment, nowadays, next year, last week, etc. The lexical type of time indication is often used
in our every-day speech when the time in which the action takes place is really very important, but
in proverbs that mostly express some general truth and where the time is not essential only the
grammatical type indication can be observed.
The continuous forms show the process in its development. In proverbs they express
simultaneity of the denoted action with some other actions in the present. Here are some examples:
He that has a long nose thinks everybody is speaking of it; One's left hand does not know what
one's right hand is doing; The tortoise wins the race while the hare is sleeping; Don't cut the bough
you are standing on; Fiddle while Rome is burning.
The perfect forms have both temporal and aspectual functions. They denote a secondary
temporal characteristic, i.e. they show that the denoted action precedes some other actions. And as
an aspective form the perfect expresses the idea of the successive connection of two events. The
following examples can prove it: We know not what is good until we have lost it; A thief passes for
a gentleman when stealing has made him rich; When children stand quiet they have done
something ill; Bacchus has drowned more men than Neptune; Don't sell the bear's skin before you
have caught the bear; He knows best what good is that has endured evil; Drink as you have brewed;
It is too late to lock the stable after the horse has bolted.
The cases of usage of continuous and perfect forms are quite limited and these aspectual
forms are not characteristic of the major part of English proverbs. The category of voice shows the
direction of the process from the point of view of the participants of the situation reflected in the
utterance. This category is based on the opposition of the active voice versus the passive voice.
Whereas in the active the subject of the syntactic construction is the doer of the action, in the
passive it is the recipient of the action. The passive forms of the verb can be used in the present,
the past, the future, the continuous and the perfect. The continuous forms of passive are practically
not used in speech and proverbs. The Present Simple Passive in the most frequently observed in
proverbs, e.g.: What is done cannot be undone; Danger foreseen is half avoided; A threatened blow
is seldom given; marriages are made in heaven; A man is known by the company he keeps; Advice
when most needed is least headed; The road to heaven is paved with good intentions; A liar is not
believed when tells the truth; A name is sooner lost than won; Desires are nourished by delays.
As the Past Simple and the- Future Simple tenses are less used in proverbs than the Present
Simple their passive equivalents are also less spread in proverbs in comparison with the Present
Simple Passive. In the following problem you can see the Past Simple Passive: Acorns were good
till bread was found; Rome was not built in a day; Fingers were made before forks; He who
pleased everybody died before he was born. Here are some examples of the Future Simple Passive:
Youth will be served; Ask no questions and you will be told no lies; the fish will soon be caught
that nibbles at every bait.
Thus, the continuous and the perfect passive forms are not observed in proverbs and the
most widespread form of the passive voice is that of the Present Simple.
The category of mood expresses the character of connection between the process denoted by
the verb and the actual reality. The types of mood distinguished in the English are the following:
the indicative mood, the imperative mood and the subjunctive mood. All of them are represented in
proverbs. The proverbs that state some facts, general truth are used in the indicative mood, e.g.; A
friend in need is a friend indeed; Every bullet has its billet; Like begets like; It never rains but
pours. A great number of proverbs give advice. They are used in the imperative mood. Two kinds
of the imperative can be distinguished:
1) The second person imperative, i.e. addressed to the second person and
formed just by the infinite without the particle 'to' standing in the beginning, e.g.:
Make haste while the sun shines; Cut your coat according to your cloth; Live and
learn; Strike while the iron is hot; Learn to walk before you run; Practice what
you preach; Make haste slowly.
2) The third person imperative formed by means of the verb let. The
construction looks like let + objective substantive + infinitive. Such a construction
is rather spread in proverbs, e.g.: Let the dead bury their dead; Let the world wag;
Let every man praise the bridge he goes over; Let sleeping dogs lie; Let bygones
be bygones; Let the cobbler stick to his last; Let the buyer beware.
Other proverbs tell us not to do this or that thing. Then the negative imperative is used. It can
be formed in different ways: 1. with the auxiliary do and not in the contracted form, as for example,
in these proverbs: Don't tell tales out of school; Don't make a mountain out of mulching; Don't have
too many irons in the fire; Don't put all your eggs in one basket; 2. with the adverb never standing
before the verb, e.g.: Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today; Never ask pardon before
you are accused; never spend у our money before you have it; Never tell your enemy that your foot
aches. In some cases 'never' and 'don't' substitute each other, like in the following proverbs: Never
trouble troubles until troubles trouble you or Don't trouble troubles until troubles trouble you; Never
look a gift horse in the mouth; or Don't look a gift horse in the mouth; 3. with the modal word of
negation 'not' following.the infinitive, e.g.: Cast not the first stone; Hide not your light under a
bushel. This way of forming negation is very rare the most frequent among proverbs are the first
two ways.
The subjunctive mood expressing non-facts is used in proverbs mainly in conditional
sentences. The stipulative mood having the form of the Past Simple and non-referring to the future
stands in the if-clause and the consecutive mood, built up by should / would and infinitive and
referring to the future stands in the main clause study these examples: If each would sleep before
his door, we should have a clean city; Many would be cowards if they had courage enough; If
wishes were horses, beggars would ride; If it were not for hope, the heart would ride; If it were not
for hope, the heart would break; If there were no clouds, we should not enjoy the sun. The
subjunctive mood can also express desire of a situation contrary to reality as, for example, in the
proverb If 'ifs' and 'am' were pots and pans. But such cases are very rare in proverbs.
Thus, having analyzed the finite forms of the verb we see that all its categories (time, aspect,
voice, mood, number and person) are reflected in proverbs. The most spread tense in proverbs is the
Present Simple as it is less specific and more generalized than the others. The category of aspect is
represented in both its forms: the continuous and the perfect, but their use is rather rare. Passive
voice is frequently found in proverbs and mainly its Present Simple forms rather than Past Simple
and Future Simple, leaving alone the continuous and the perfect passive that are not used in
proverbs at all. All three kinds of mood: the indicative, the imperative, and the subjunctive are
observed in the formation of English proverbs, and the subjunctive mood being less spread than the
previous two moods is mainly used in conditional sentences.
The non-finite forms of the verb. They render processes as peculiar kinds of substances and
properties. Unlike the finite forms they do not have either grammatical time or mood. Due to the
fact that they combine the properties of verb with other notional parts of speech such as noun,
adjective and adverb, they perform much more functions in the utterance: verbal (predicate) and
non-verbal (subject, object, adverbial modifier, attribute). There are four forms of verbs: the
infinitive, the gerund, the present participle, the past participle. All of them are widely represented
in proverbs. The infinitive combines the properties of the verb and of the noun and therefore it has
different syntactic functions: subject, object, predicate, attribute, adverbial modifier. The infinitive
is widespread in proverbs and plays all these syntactic roles. Most of all it serves as a predicative,
i.e. the nominal part of the compound predicate, e.g.: Children should be seen and not heard; Men
are not to be measured by inches; A full cup must be carried steadily; What can't be cured must be
endured; Friendship is not to be bought at a fair. As the infinitive presents a combination of the verb
and the noun, it also performs the non verbal functions in proverbs, these are: 1) subject, e.g.: To
know everything is to know nothing; To err is human; To travel hopefully is better than to arrive; It
is better to give than to take; 2) object, e.g.: Treat others as you would like to be treated; Trough
obedience learn to command; You may lead a horse to the water, but you cannot make him drink; 3)
adverbial modifier of purpose, e.g.: It takes all sorts to make a world; Live not to eat, but eat to live;
These things are sent to try us; 4) attribute. But is very rare in proverbs, e.g.: Promises are like pie-
crust, made to be broken.
 The verbal functions performed by the infinitive prevail over the non-verbal and among non-
verbal the most frequent is that of the subject. The infinitive has the grammatical categories of
voice and aspect. The category of aspect within the infinitive, i.e. the forms of the continuous and
the perfect infinitive, is not revealed, in proverbs, as these forms are rather long and complicated.
But the category of voice is represented perfectly well. The forms of the passive infinitive are very
often used in proverbs, especially after the modal verbs, e.g.: A bird may be known by its song; The
evil wound may be cured, but not the evil name; What can't be cured must be endured; Love cannot
be compelled; Children should be seen and not heard; He that is born to be hanged shall never be
drowned; What is done cannot be undone.
The gerund combines the properties of the verb and the noun. As distinct from infinitive it is
more substantival unit, it can be used with prepositions. And as a result its non-verbal functions
performed in proverbs prevail over its verbal function. Most of all gerund serves as a subject, e.g.:
Saying and doing are two things; Fretting cares makes gray hairs; Pouring water on the fire is not
the way to quench it; Finding is keeping; A thief passes for a gentleman when stealing has made
him rich; Very often when used with a preposition it performs the function of adverbial modifier,
e.g.: By doing nothing we learn to do ill; Be slow in choosing a friend, slower in changing him; A
watched pot is long in boiling; You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs; Between
promising and keeping a man can marry his daughter. It can be used as an attribute, e.g.: Genius is
an infinite capacity for taking pains; Catching fish is not the whole of fishing; There are many ways
of killing a cat than of chocking it with cream; In some proverbs it stands for the object, e.g.: direct
object - Clean hands want no washing; and indirect or prepositional object - The liar preached
against stealing and had a goose in his sleeve. Rather seldom the gerund is used as predicative in
the complex predicates. Here are some examples: Seeing is believing; Finding is keeping.
Though the gerund has the passive forms and the perfect forms they are not revealed in
proverbs. As the participle I is a combination of the verb, adjective and adverb it can have the
functions of predicative, attribute and adverbial modifier. But only the function of attribute is
performed by the participle I in proverbs. Most of all it is used as premodifying attribute, e.g.: A
growing youth has a wolf in his belly; A creaking door hangs long; Barking dogs seldom bite; rats
desert a sinking ship; No living man all things can; Nothing is impossible to a willing heart. Very
rarely it is used as postmodifying attribute, e.g.: Inside every fat man there's a thin man trying to
get out. The passive and the perfect forms of the participle I coinciding with those of the gerund
are not observed in the proverbs either. The past participle combines the properties of the verb and
the adjective and thus its main functions are attribute and predicative. They both are realized in
proverbs. Study the following examples: 1) The participle II used as attribute, either as
premodifying attribute, e.g.: Stolen pleasures are sweetest; A threatened blow is seldom given; A
watched pot never boils; III gotten gains never prosper; A burnt child dreads the fire; or as
postmodifying attribute, e.g.: A house divided against itself cannot stand; Adversity overcome is
the greatest glory; A trouble shared is a trouble halved; There's many a true word spoken in jest; 2)
The participle II - as predicative, e.g.: A fault confessed is half redressed; Advice most needed is
least heeded; A threatened blow is seldom given; Forewarned is forearmed. In the last example the
participle II forewarned has a unique function of subject.
Thus, we see that the verbids are quite often used in proverbs performing different functions:
the infinitive1 - mostly predicative; the gerund - subject and adverbial modifier; the participles I
and II - attribute. And only the infinitive has its passive forms reflected in proverbs. Speaking about
the noun we can say that this part of speech is widely represented in proverbs. As it is known nouns
are subcategorized into several oppositional pairs: first, on the basis of 'type of nomination' into
proper and common; second, on the basis of 'form of existence -animate and inanimate; Third, on
the basis of quantitative structure - countable and uncountable; the fourth type of subcategorization
into concrete and abstract is not always very explicitly realized. All these subclasses of nouns can
be easily found in proverbs. Here are some examples of a) proper nouns: Even Homer sometimes
nods; Caesar's wife must be above suspicion; Every Jack has his Jill; Rome was not built in a day;
b) common nouns: A bad workman quarrels with his tools; Bad news has wings; Counsel is no
command; Forbearance is no acquittance; c) animate nouns: Like teacher, like pupil; The burnt
child dreads the fire; The leopard cannot change its spots; Lookers-on see more than players; d)
inanimate nouns: Life is not a bed of roses; There is no smoke without fire; Wishes do not wash
dishes; Every bullet has its billet; e) countable nouns: Marriage is a lottery - Marriages are made in
heaven; Make enemy your friend - False friends are worse than open enemies; Man is as old as he
feels, woman as she looks - women in mischief are wiser than men; f) uncountable nouns: Blood is
thicker than water; Brevity is the soul of wit; Knowledge is power; Familiarity breeds contempt; g)
concrete nouns: The bait hides the hook; There is no rose without horns; A cat in gloves catches no
mice; Better an egg today than a hen tomorrow; h) abstract nouns: Love is never withoutjealousy;
Best defense is offence; Perfect friendship cannot be without equality; A forced kindness deserves
no thanks.
As to the syntactic roles that the noun can play in the sentence they are various: subject,
object, attribute, adverbial modifier, and predicative. All these syntactic functions of the noun are
represented in proverbs, e.g.: 1. subject: The end crowns the work; East or West home is best; The
bait hides the hook; Barking dogs seldom bite; 2. a) direct object: Diamond cuts diamond; One
swallow does not make a summer; Money begets money; b) prepositional object: A bird may be
know by its song; Time and tide wait for no man; Old birds are not caught with chaff; A bad
workman quarrels with his tools; 3. attribute: Birds of feather flock together; A friend in need is a
friend indeed; A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush; Jack of all trades, master of none; 4.
adverbial modifier a) of place: Charity begins at home; A cock is bold on his dunghill; If the
mountain will not come to Mahomet, then Mahomet must go to the mountain; b) of time: All cats
are grey in the night; Rome was not built in a day; They must hunger in winter that will not work in
summer; 5. in combination with the link verb be the noun is used as substantival predicative, e.g.: A
bargain is a bargain; Time is money; Praise is not pudding; Every man is the architect of his
fortunes; Poverty is no sin. The most frequent in proverbs are the functions of subject, direct object
and predicative.
The adjective is also very frequently used in English proverbs. It has a general meaning of
property of a thing and it often accompanies the noun. That's why its most usual syntactic function
performed in proverbs is attribute, e.g.: A good beginning makes a good ending; Desperate diseases
must have desperate remedies; Every dark cloud has a silver lining; Faint heart never -won fait
lady; False friends are worse than open enemies. Another syntactic function of adjectives in
proverbs is that of adjectival predicative, e.g.: Everything is good in its season; Delays are
dangerous; Forbidden fruit is sweet; He is lifeless that is faultless; All things are difficult before
they are easy. Rather often in proverbs adjective becomes substantivized and thus performs the
function of the noun. In the following proverbs it has the function: a) of subject: Every white has its
black, and every sweet its sour; Cheapest is the dearest; True blue will never stain; Two blacks do
not make a white; Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow; b) of object: Of the two evils choose the
least; One law for the rich and another for poor; Every white has its black, and every sweet its sour.
The adjectives are divided into two subclasses: relative and quantitative. The first denote
properties of substances as are determined by the direct relation of the substance to some other
substance and the last express qualities of substances. The qualitative adjectives can have the
degrees of comparison: the positive, the comparative and the superlative. These degrees can be
formed either by means of suffixal forms of derivation (suffix - er - for the comparative degree and
- est -for the superlative), or by adding more and most. As proverbs aim to be as brief as possible,
mainly the first means of forming the degrees of comparison is used, e.g.: the comparative degree:
A tattler is worse than a thief; Blood is thicker than water; creditors have better memories than
debtors; company in distress makes trouble less; the chain is no stronger than its weakest link; Truth
is stranger than fiction; the superlative degree: A good example is the best sermon; best defense is
offence; Cheapest is the dearest; cross the stream where it is the shallowest; Debt is the worst
poverty; Empty vessels make the greatest sound; Last, but not least; The darkest hour is that before
the dawn.
Thus, the words more and most for the sake of brevity are not used in proverbs to form the
degrees of comparison. The adverb accompanies the verb and serves as adverbial modifier. The
adverb is quite often observed in proverbs, e.g.: Make haste slowly; better early than late; All is
well that ends well; A little fire is quickly trodden out; A cracked bell can never sound well; A fool
and his money are soon parted; A joke nevergains an enemy, but often loses a friend; All are not
merry that dance lightly; Fortune is easily found, but hard to be kept. Sometimes the adverb may
stand in the position of the subject as in the proverb. Much will have more.
Like the adjectives the adverbs also have the degrees of comparison which are also formed
either by suffixes or by adding more and most. Here are some examples of degrees of comparison
of adverbs in proverbs: the superlative degree: He knows best what good is that has endured evil;
He laughs best who laughs last; he smells best that smells of nothing; Least said, soonest mended.
The way of forming the degrees of comparison by means of more and most is not used in
proverbs. The comparative degree of adverbs is more frequent in proverbs than that of the
superlative.
Among the pronouns the most frequent in proverbs are the personal ones. They are used as
noun substitutes and thus perform the functions of the subject. The most spread is the neutralized,
i.e. not indicating the gender, pronoun he in combination with such pronouns as who, that, e.g.: He
who is born a fool is never cured; He who hesitates is lost; He works best who knows his trade; He
gives twice who gives in a trice; He that seeks trouble never misses; he that talks much errs much;
He lives long that lives well.
The pronoun you is very often used in impersonal sentences, e.g.: You cannot wash charcoal
white; You made your bed, now He in it; You cannot teach an old dog new tricks; You cannot eat
your cake and have it; You cannot judge a tree by its bark. It is also used in conditional sentences,
e.g.: If you run after two hares, you will catch neither; If you want a thing well done, do it yourself;
If you try to please all you will please none; If you dance you must pay the fiddler; If you cannot
have the best, make the best of what you have.
The anticipatory pronoun it is used in proverbs to make them sound more emphatic, e.g.: It is
a good horse that never stumbles; It is a poor mouse that has only one hole; It is never too late to
learn; It is an ill bird that fouls its own nest.
Such pronouns as they, those and what are seldom met in proverbs. Here are some
examples: They must hunger in winter that will not work in summer; If you agree to carry the calf,
they will make you carry the cow; Those live in glass houses should not throw stones; What is lost
is lost: What is done cannot be undone.
The reflexive pronouns are hardly ever used in proverbs, e.g.: He that is full of himself is
very empty; If you want a thing well done, do it yourself; He that is ill of himself will be good to
nobody. Thus, the pronoun he is the most frequent in proverbs, especially in complex sentences.
The numerals, as a part of speech, denote number. They subdivided into cardinal and ordinal. The
cardinal numerals are more often observed in proverbs, e.g.: A stitch in time saves nine; Don't pull
all your eggs in one basket; If you run after two hares you will catch neither; Keep a thing seven
years and you will find a use for it; Saying and doing are two things; The best fish smell when they
are three days old; Two blacks do not make a white; Two heads are better than one; Two is
company, but three is none; When three know it all know it.
The ordinal numerals are seldom used in proverbs and in most of the cases it is the numeral
first, e.g.: Judge not of men and things at first sight; The cask savors of the first fill; The first blow
is half the battle; First come, first served; Custom is the second nature. Summing up all that was
mentioned in this chapter we should stress the fact that all parts of speech, notional and functional
(the only exception is interjections) are used in the formation of proverbs. Among the functional
parts of speech these are mostly prepositions, articles (both definite and indefinite, conjunctions,
particle 'to' and words of negation. As to the notional parts of speech the most important among
them is the verb as it is used in the majority of proverbs and can be omitted only in elliptical ones
(when it is self-evident and easily understood) for the sake of brevity. The verb moreover has the
greater number of grammatical categories, these are the categories of time, aspect, mood, voice,
number and person (time and mood refer only to the finite forms of the verb).
The verbids: the infinitive, the gerund, the participles I and II, are widely represented in
proverbs. They perform different syntactic functions both verbal, and substantival (subject, object,
adverbial modifier) and attributive.
Among the other notional parts of speech used in proverbs we should point out the noun
bearing the functions of subject, object (direct and prepositional), attribute, adverbial modifier and
predicative. The pronouns are used as noun substitutes (mainly he, it, who, that). Adjectives and
adverbs are also often observed in proverbs and their degrees of comparison are built up by means
of suffixes and that also contributes to the brevity of proverbs. Numerals are less used in proverbs,
especially the ordinals.

2.5. Syntactic analysis of proverbs.

As it was mentioned in some of the definitions a proverb is a sentence. Therefore it makes

sense while analyzing the grammatical structure of proverbs to determine what a sentence is, and
what kinds of sentences exist. According to Blokh55 the sentence is 'the immediate integral unit of
speech built up of words according to a definite syntactic pattern and distinguished by a
contextually relevant communicative purpose ' ' So far as the sentence is a communicative unit first
of all sentences should be classified on the communicative principle, or as it is also called 'the
purpose of communication '.Here three sentence-types are recognized; first, the declaration
sentences; second , imperative sentences; third the interrogative sentences. All these types of
sentences are represented in proverbs. Some linguists distinguish also another type- the exclamatory
sentences, but these being just an expression of emotions are not found within proverbs. Due to the
fact that proverbs contain some general truth or thought the most widespread among them are the
declarative sentences expressing a statement. They can be either affirmative or negative. Here are
some examples of declarative affirmative sentences: We soon believe what we desire; The early
bird catches the worm; Best defense is offence; Bud news has wings; He is happy that thinks
himself so; Time flies. As to the negative sentences there are various types of expressing negations
in proverbs.
First, by the help of modal verb "not": l)'not' with an auxiliary verb :,e.g. 'be 1 - Every day is
not Saturday; A fox is not taken twice in some snare ; Health is not valued till thickness comes ;'do'-
Crows do not pick crow's eyes ; Dog does not eat dog; One swallow does not make summer ; 'will-
Many words will not fill a bushel; They must hunger in winter that will not work in summer ; What
is bread in the bone will not go out of the flesh; 2)'not' with a modal verb ,e.g. : All men can't be
first: Love cannot be forced; The leopard cannot change its spots; All
1
truths are not to be told; 3) 'not preceded by a notional verb , e.g. : We know not is good until we
have lost it; An old dog barks not in vain; Honour and profit live not in one sack; 4) 'not' in the
combination with a noun ,e.g. :A man of words and not of deeds is like a garden full of weeds; An
ill wound is cured, not an ill name; Deeds, not words. Second, by means of negative pronouns: 1.
The most frequent is 'no' ,e.g. There is no place like home; Counsel no command; A cat in gloves
catches no mice; No wisdom, like silence; No pains, no gains; 2. by the pronoun 'nothing',e.g. He
that knows nothing doubts nothing; He who makes no mistakes, makes nothing; Nothing succeeds
like success; Nothing venture, nothing have; 3. by the pronoun 'none1, e.g. : None so blind as those
who won't see; None but the brave deserve the fair ; Two is company, three is none ; A Jack of all
traders is the master of none ; A friend to all is the friend to none; 4. by the help of pronoun
’nobody’ ,e.g. : Everybody's business is nobody's business ; It is an ill wind that blows nobody
good; He that serves everybody is paid by nobody; He that is ill to himself will be good to nobody.
Third, the negative adverb "never" is very spread, e.g.: A beggar can never be bankrupt; A good
deed is never lost; Faint heart never won fair lady; Misfortunes never come alone ; It never rains
but it pours ; Money spent on brains never spent in vain; Fools never know when they are well;
Who is born a fool is never cured.
So, the most frequently used ways of expressing negation in proverbs are that by the help
of negative pronoun 'no', adverb 'never' and modal word 'not'.
A great number of proverbs contain some advice or precept and they are expressed in the
imperative sentences a statement is embodied in the inductive construction. Such a mixture
contributes to a high expressiveness. They also can be either affirmative or negative. All these
cases were described in the previous chapter when the category of mood was examined. The third
type of sentences - interrogative- is rarely found among proverbs. Such proverbs embodied in
questions do not ask for information, they do not require the answer as they themselves express
some statement. Thus it also presents a mixed type - declarative-interrogative. Such sentences are
also called 'rhetorical questions'. Here are some examples: What is workman without his tools?
When doctors differ who is decide? Why keep a dog and bark yourself! Another principle of
classifying sentences is the number of predicative lines, i.e. connection of predicate and subject.
Sentences can have only one predicative line, they are called ' mono-predicative ' or ' simple ', or
two and more predicative lines, such sentences are poly-predicative, or composite. The proverbs
can be of both types.

The simple sentences, as in fact any sentence is organized as a system of parts. The
nominative parts of the sentence are subject, predicate, object, adverbial modifier and predicate, the
other are optional. Thus, any sentence must at least have a subject and a predicate. Though there are
not found among proverbs at all being more typical for the dialogical speech. Simple sentences
formed only by obligatory notional parts are called unexpanded. Such sentences are very few
within the structures of proverbs, e.g.: Time flies, Poverty is no sin, Money talks; Delays are
dangerous; Tastes differ. The unexpanded simple proverbs are quite rare in comparison with the
expanded, i.e. formed both by obligatory and optional notional part or several of them. Here are the
examples of proverbs expanded only: 1. by the object -Curiosity killed the cat; Silence gives
consent; Money begets money. 2. by the attribute - Forbidden fruit is sweet; Life is not a bed of
roses ;Dumber dog are dangerous. Facts are stubborn things; 3. by the adverbial modifier - Charity
begins at home ; Marriages are made in heaven ; Appetite comes with eating ; Fasting comes after
feasting. But in most of the cases proverbs are expanded by several optional parts, e.g. small rain
lays great dust ; Birds of feather flock together; greedy flock have long arms; zeal without
knowledge is a runway horse.
Composite sentences consist of two or more predicative lines, each predicative line forming
a clause. The clauses in the composite sentences can be linked in two ways: first, by the help of
conjunction, i.e. asyndetically. Both types of linking the clauses in composite sentences are
observed in proverbs. Here are some examples of asyndetically link, e.g. : After dinner sit a while,
after supper walk a mile , Easy come easy go; First come, first served; Love me, love my dog;
As a rule asyndetic proverbs have parallel constructions and clauses constituting them are
elliptical, i.e. they do not have either a subject, or a predicate. But quite a great number of proverbs
are syndetic sentences. Within these composite sentences two types are distinguished: first,
coordination, and second, subordination. The composite sentences of coordination are called
compound and they contain units of equal rank. The clauses in such sentences can be connected by
the help of the following conjunctions: and, but, or, as well as, still, neither... nor, either... or,
both ... and, nevertheless, yet however, for. In proverbs mainly the conjunctions 'and1 and 'but' are
used , e.g. 'and': Claw me , and I will claw thee ;Fast today, and starve tomorrow; Follow the river
and you will get to the see; Get a name to rise early and you may lie all day; Go to bed with the
lamb and rise with the lark; 'but': Speech is silver but silence is gold; Live not to eat, but eat to
live ; Man proposes , but God disposes. The other conjunctions are practically not used in proverbs,
just a few of them, such as, 'or ', 'yet', 'neither nor' can be found, e.g. Mend or end; Respect
yourself, or one else will respect you; The tongue is not still, yet it cuts.
The second type of composite, i.e., the sentences of subordination are called complex.
Unlike the compound sentences they are made up of units of unequal rank: one is dominated by the
other. Thus, the complex sentences consist of a principal clause dominating a one. They can be
linked by means of numerous conjunctions: that, whether, if, as soon as, as long as, as, till, until,
before, after, since, when, while, because, unless, though, although, as if, etc.; pronouns: who,
whose, which, whom, that; and adverbs: where, how, why. This type of sentences is widespread
among proverbs many from the above mentioned conjunctions, pronounce and adverbs are used in
them: 1. Temporal conjunctions are very frequent, e.g.: "before": All things are difficult before they
are easy; Before you make a friend eat a bushel of salt with him; Catch the bear before you sell his
skin; "While ": The tortoise wins the race while the hair is sleeping; Fiddle while Rome is burning;
Strike while we iron is hot; "till" :Never cackle till your egg is laid; Never fry a fish till it is caught;
We never know the value of water till the well is dry; "until": We never know what is good until we
have lost it; Don't whistle until you are out of the wood; The cow knows not what her tail is worth
until she has lost it; "when": A liar is not believed when he speaks the truth; Death when it comes
will have no denial; When at Rome do as Romans do; 2. The whole set of proverbs contain some
condition warning or advice. They are formed by the help of "if e.g.: If the blind lead the blind both
shall fall into; If you can not bite never show teeth; If you dance you must pay the fiddler; 3. Many
comparative proverbs contain conjunctions "as", "as ... so" Do as you would be done by; A thief
knows a thief as wolf knows a wolf; Choose an author as you choose a friend. Some comparative
proverbs are formed by means of double conjunction "the ...the" with the following adjective or
adverb in the comparative degree e.g.: The higher the ape goes, the more he shows his tail; The
more haste the less speed; The more the merrier; 4. Various pronouns serve as linking words in a
greater number of proverbs, especially in proverbs beginning with the pronoun he in the role of the
subject. Here are the examples of proverbs with the pronouns "that": He is a fool that forgets
himself; He is happy that thinks himself so; He is lifeless that is faultless; "who": He knows mush
who knows how to hold his tongue; He laughs best who laughs last; He works best who knows his
trade; 5. Among the adverbs "where" is the most often used in proverbs to link the principle clause
with the subordinate one, e.g.: Cross the stream where it is shallowest; Faults are thin where love is
sin; Fools rush in where angels fear to tread; The number of such proverbs is limited.
Thus, we can conclude that English proverbs are very rich in their syntactic constructions.
First, according to the purpose of communication three types of sentences are distinguished, two of
them being a mixed type: declarative -imperative - proverbs giving some advice or percept;
declarative - interrogative -proverbs containing a rhetorical question. The third type is rather are,
and the most frequent is the declarative type. Proverbs can be also subdivided into simple and
compound. The simple sentences are either unexpanded (e.g. Time flies) or expanded by an object,
attribute and adverbial modifier (e.g. A creaking door hangs long on its hinges). The composite
proverbs fall into the asyndetic (e.g. Rain at seven, fine at eleven) and the syndetic, with different
conjunctions, or pronouns and the syndetic, with different conjunctions, or pronouns and adverbs
linking the clauses. There are two types within these sentences: first, compound, i.e. the sentences
of coordination, usually with conjunction "and" or "but", second, complex, i.e. the sentences of
subordination mainly with the following conjunctions: when, while, till, until, before, if, as, and
pronouns that and who.
Some other syntactic stylistic devices should be mentioned here.
Ellipsis is a typical phenomenon in conversation and as far as proverbs are mostly used in
spoken language, ellipsis is also characteristic for many of them. The essence of this stylistic
device lies in the omission from a construction of one ore more words, e.g., no longer pipe, no
longer dance; easy come, easy go; new lords, new laws; after death the doctor; better late than
never. As a rule a link verb is omitted in proverbs emotional colouring and makes proverbs sound
more emphatic.
Besides all these above mentioned syntactical stylistic devices we may also come across
enumeration in proverbs. In most cases proverbs in which it is used are rhymed and they are
rather long. Here are some examples: Turkey heresy, hops, and beer came into England all in one
year; A woman, a dog, and a walnut tree the more you beat them the better they be; On Saint
Thomas the divine kill all turkeys, geese and swine; Love in a hut, with water and a crust is
cinders, ashes, dust. In enumeration each homogeneous part stands out clearly and the whole
proverb is easily perceptive. This device also gives a rhythmical design to proverbs.
Syntactical stylistic devices are very frequently used in the formation of English proverbs.
The most wide-spread among them are repetition and its different types: framing, anaphoric,
epiphoric, repetitions involving the whole structure of the sentence: parallel constructions and
chiasmus. Ellipsis is also a distinctive feature for many English proverbs. It makes them more
laconic and emphatic. In some long proverbs we can find enumeration. On the whole all these
stylistic devices bear both the rhythmical and semantic functions.
2.6. Proverbs in Literature. As proverbs are very vivid, expressive, wide-spread and well-
known to many people they are rather often used in literature, not only in prose but also even in
poetry. Proverbs may be introduced into the text by the help of various sentences or clauses such as
'You know the" old proverb', 'We have a saying', 'This proverb applies here', 'It is an old saying',
'They say and suchlike. Here are some examples: 'There is no truer proverb than the one that tells
us that a watched pot never boils, and yet, though they have been watching for the clock to strike
midnight, it has struck at last' (R. Broughton). "We have a proverb", said Shelton" "A bird in the
hand is worth to in the bush" (J. Galsworthy).
'The old adage" well begun is half done' applies to strike strategy as well as to other
activities. The first blow is often decisive' (W. Foster) 'It is an old saying that' a little pot is soon
hot', which was the case with William the testy. Being a little man he was soon in a passion, and
once in a passion he soon boiled over' (W. Irving). 'In literature, as in trade, the old proverb holds
good, 'a rolling stone gathers no moss' (W. G. Smith). 'Don't you know that vulgar old proverb that
says that 'a watched pot never boils'?' (M.E. Braddon). 'It's a long turn that has no lane at the end of
it, as the proverb says (M. Twain). Actually, in this example the worlds introducing the proverb do
not precede it, but follow it. 'People will agree in the trite observation that misfortunes never come
single' (F. Marryat). 'They say second thoughts are best, don't they? (R. Broughton). 'Where we
should say 'The early bird catches the worm,' the Indian rustic says, 'Who sleeps late, gets the bull-
calf, he who rises early the cow-calf, -which is more valuable.' (W.G. Smith). Proverbs can be also
used without any accompanying words, for instance: "I should have done it before, but it's better
late than never". (Th. Dreiser). "Am I to say nothing?" she stammers. "Nothing! Actions speak
louder than words". Mary Rupert, and give me a grandson as quick as you can!" (R. Broughton).
"Oh, thank heartily... A friend in need is a friend indeed" (W.G. Smith). "He said he thought he had
mislaid a book, had looked in to see if David had it, and had then remembered lending it to one of
the churchwardens. "All's well that ends well, then". The headmaster was jolly". (P. Johnson). "I'll
give you a piece of advice, young cock, and charge you nothing for it, too. Ask no questions, and
you'll be told no lies" (J. Galsworthy). "Lavinia breaks in upon her with a terrible jocosity". You
have forgiven him! Well, better late than never!" (R. Broughton). "Don't let's be down-hearted.
There's a silver lining to every cloud" (W.S. Gilbert). "Half a loaf is better than no bread!", and a
man, even though he be not the man, is better than nothing". (R. Broughton). "In is an ill wind that
blows, nobody any good, and Mrs. Briggs had profited by the excuse afforded by Mr. Delany's
acuter phrase of illness to make her visits to Grey Ladies doily ones' (R. Broughton). "He became
convinced that he would not speak to her, but lie low, and trust to that common-sense, of which she
surely had her share-oh yes! 'Just keep New York eyes open, and speak to no one," he thought,
"least said, soonest mended". (J. Galsworthy).
Lexically, the connection of a proverb with the text may be expressed through the use of the
same words or their derivatives, also through-synonyms, antonyms, and words belonging to the
same semantic sphere, e.g.: "What's the use of watching? A watched pot never boils" (E. Gaskel).
"Drat that boy,' interposed my sister, frowning at me over her work", what a questioner he is. Ask
no questions, and you'll be told no lies." It was not very polite to herself, I thought, to imply that I
should be told lies by her, even if I did ask questions. (Ch. Dickens). "You'll see him then late". -
Well, better late than never. Or at least so one piously hopes where one's friends are concerned. To
tell you the truth, the proverb needs changing. Better never than early." (A. Huxley). "Where is it?"
says she, "where's my hundred dollars that he made away with while my trusting back was turned?"
- "This is the straw that broke the camel's back." Says I but I was too hot and tired to get up. "That's
not the only back that's going to be broken", says she" (T. Capote).
"Kitty Ward protested that every time he [her brother Franklin Hubert] accumulated a bit of
money to spend on himself some urgent need occurred in her own little brood. Franklin Hubert had
the same thought, but reassured her with the observation that blood was thicker then water. He
could not bring himself to add that it was also thicker than whiskey, which Kitty had taken to in the
quiet of her lonely house." (J. O'Hara) "That daughter of Doc Cochran's is a nice girl", said the
man. The woman laughed. "She's growing up and attracting men's attention now. Better keep your
eyes in your head. She'll turn out bad. Like mother, like daughter" the woman replied." (Sh.
Anderson) "But it is an ill wind that 'blows nobody good. This storm raised George Tielding's
better part of man." (Ch. Reade).
"But seriously, Nell, doesn't she see how the land his? I should have thought that it did not require
spectacles." - There's none so blind as them as won't see." I reply, oracularly. (R. Broughton).
"Nothing venture, nothing win. But happily we have won." (R. Blackmore). "Still you can learn to
do something else, you know. Where there's a will there's a way." - "And I am very willing." said
Smike, brightening up again. (Ch. Dickens). "Don't you see that it's all hopeless? Hopeless!" -
"While there's life there's hope. That's what people say. That's what I want to believe about us." (D.
Robbins). When used in speech, proverbs may undergo various changes. These changes or
deviations may be subdivided into three main types: 1. lexical changes; 2. morphological changes;
3. syntactic changes.
1. Lexical changes occur on the lexical level, when words undergo certain procedures. There
are insertions, when additional words appear in the proverbs; substitutions, when a word or more in
the proverb are changed for another or more words; omissions, when a word, or two, or more are
just omitted from the structure of the proverb. Rather frequent type of lexical changes happening in
proverbs while used in speech is insertion.
The proverb Look before you leap receives an adverbial modifier twice: Look twice before
you leap. (Ch. Bronte). The proverb It's a long lane that has no turning is expanded by an adverbial
modifier of place: It's a long lane that has no turn in it, as the chap set to console himself in the
treadmill. (A. Taylor, B.J. Whiting). The indefinite pronoun any is added to the proverb It 's an ill
wind that blow nobody good' to strengthen and underline the main idea: It's an ill wind that blows
no one any good".
The proverb Look before you leap is expanded by an adverb that stands in the beginning:
Always look before you leap, that's common sense. (A. Taylor, B.J. Whiting). In the proverb The
devil is not so black as he is painted the adjective 'half is added to intensify the effect of persuasion.
The devil is not half so black as he is painted". (F. Marryat). In the following example the proverb
Actions speak launder than words is expanded by an indirect object with attributive clause: "To the
type of mind that Millbourne breeds actions speak louder than words." (P.G. Wodehouse).
 "Being in for a penny, I am ready, as the saying is, to be in for a pound". (Ch. Dickens) In
this example the proverb In for a penny, in for a pound has the insertion not only of a predicative
line I am ready, but also of the verb to be in two different morphemic forms: first, is the form of
participle I that makes 'in for a penny' an attribute, the second is the form of Infinitive that together
with in for a pound performs the function of an object.
The more widely-spread type of lexical changes occurring in the proverb is substitution. By
changing the world 'actions' for 'presents' the proverb 'Actions speak louder than words' turns into
'Presents speak louder than words" (B. Stevenson). In the proverb 'As you make your bed, so you
must lie on it' the poor young man had set his heart on we know where. As we make our bed, so we
must lie on it' miss. It's for nobody to judge, though it may be a lesson. (W. de la Mare).
In the following example the pronoun 'you' is substituted by another personal pronoun 'he'.
Thus the proverb You can't eat your cake and have it in this abstract looks like: 'A headlong,
generous sort of youngster, like Tom, must be taught early than he can't have his cake and eat his
cake'. (Th. Hughes)
In the next context the word 'devil' from the proverb 'The devil is not so black as he is
painted' is changed for the pronoun 'he': "Among the ladies I was always especial favorite, and so
polished was my behaviour among them, that they could not understand how I should have
obtained my frightful nickname of the Black Devil in the regiment. "He is not so black as he is
painted," I laughingly would say." (W.M. Thackeray) The word 'use' in the proverb 'There is no use
crying over spilt milk' is substituted by a synonymous 'good': "Well, Henry; it's unfortunate. But
there's no good crying over spilled milk. They did a very neat job on poor Dorothy". (A. Cronin)
Such type of lexical change as omission is also frequent in proverbs in literature. For
example, in the following abstract the proverb A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush is
reduced to just a phraseological unit' birds in the bush', meaning something not real, that may be or
may on not possibly obtained: 'He complained to Fleur that the book dealt with nothing but birds in
the bush; it was unpractical. (J. Galsworthy). 'One day she happened to mention her diary, and say
it was a present comfort to her. Julia, catching at every straw of consolation, said she would keen
one too' (Cl. Reade). Here the phraseological unit 'to catch at a straw' was taken from the proverb
'A drowning man will catch at a straw' and it means 'to avail oneself of even the slightest chance of
rescue from one's difficulties' or 'to gain hope from the slightest sing that may seem favorable'.
The part of the proverb A friend in need is a friend indeed - a friend in need has become a
phraseological unit meaning 'a real, devoted friend' and may be used independently as in the
following example: "I am obliged to you," returns Mr. Bucket, squeezing his hand. "You're a friend
in need". (Ch. Dickens). "Rolling stone" (a part of 'A rolling stone gathers no moss') means 'a
person who frequently changes his occupation, who moves around, never stays at one and the some
place' may be used separately as in: "You know what I mean - he's rather a rolling stone, who's
been a journalist and a lecturer and an actor, and all sorts of things" (G. Chesterton).
The idioms 'birds of a feather' denoting' people of the some sort' originates from the proverb
'Birds of a feather flock together' may be used alone: "He has conspired against me, like the rest,
and they are but birds of one feather." (Ch. Dickens)
The idiomatic expression 'to fall between two stools' is to fail through vacillation between
two different plans, things, etc., instead of boldly going for either one, or the other, and sticking to
it. It is the part of the proverb 'Between two stools one falls to the ground" here it is used apart: "He
enclosed an extract from the 'reader's' opinion, which stated that Mr. Harrison had fallen between
two stools of art and the British public" (J. Galsworthy) Thus, many proverbs gave rise to
phraseological units, or idioms. These latter generally consist of two or more words which
correspond to a syntagm in the proverb. Nominal phraseological units usually originate from the
subject a predicative with an attribute, e.g. a bird in the hand, a bird in the bush, a silver lining, a
rolling stone. Verbal phraseological units are mostly based on the predicate accompanied by the
secondary parts of the sentence, e.g. to catch at a straw, to fall between two stools: to eat one's cake
and have it. Phraseological units are widely spread in speech, and some of them are even more
popular than the corresponding proverbs. 2. Morphological changes occurring within the proverbs
lead to the substitution of one grammatical category or form for another. As a rule it is the change
of one tense for another,- as in the following examples: A drowning man will catch at a straw,
instead of Future Simple present is used: "The drowning man catches at a straw" (Ch. Dickens); in
the proverb As you make your bed, so you must lie on it Present Simple is changed for Present
Perfect in "Stop crying", she says, harshly", you have made your bed, and you must lie on it" (R.
Broughton). The Present Simple in the proverb There is no smoke without fire is turned into Past
Simple in the following abstract "He constantly repeated to himself the old adage, that there was no
smoke without fire" (A. Trollope).
Not only may the tense of the verb be changed, but also its number as in: "When a lover
meets his intended with her companion, the latter will say. "Two are company but three are none,"
and pass on another road" (W.G. Smith). Here the plural form is used instead of the singular as in
the proverb 'Two is company three in none'.
Also the finite form of the verb may be substituted by the non-finite form. In the proverb 'Too
many cooks spoil the broth' the finite form of the verb in the Present Simple tense is used but in the
following abstract it is changed for a non-finite form - Participle One: 'From the first, Lorn's efforts
and mine seemed a curious sort of example of too many cooks spoiling the broth" (M.G. Eberhart).
Nouns can also undergo such morphological changes, e.g. "Kate, a drowning man catches at
straws, you know" (R. Broughton). Here the plural form 'straws' is used instead of the singular. In
the following example adjective is used in the superlative degree: "I don't cake what any old maid
says about me. I always talk to people that I like, and if they choose to call me a flirt, they may. It's
my opinion, that still waters run the deepest" (A. Trollope) instead of the positive degree as in the
proverb Still waters run deep.
Syntactic changes in proverbs may be observed when the word order is changed, or one type
of sentence is substituted for another. For instance, the structure of the proverb Better late than
never is changed in this abstract: Just in time to save him from such an outrage to chivalry as
would be implied by boxing Miss Harborough's ears, appear upon the scene, though late, yet better
than never. She had her self-respect to consider (A. Huxley). Another example is the usage of the
proverb Every cloud has a silver lining in "Don't let's be down-hearted. There's silver lining to
every cloud." (W.S. Gilbert). Here the subject and the object are replaced by one another.
The proverb “Second thoughts are best” is a declarative sentence and in the following
abstract it is changed for an interrogative one: "Second thoughts are best" No, says the Guesser at
Truth. First Thoughts are best, being those of generous impulse, whereas Second Thoughts are
those of Selfish Prudence". (W.G. Smith). In the following passage the proverb A watched pot
never boils is transformed by the help of emphatic construction: "The dispute seemed to be
interminable; each moment heralded a fight, but it is the watched pot that never boils" (A. Bennet).
In this example not only the emphatic construction is used but also a defining clause substitutes the
attribute: 'It's only the child that burns its fingers that dreads the fire' (W.G. Smith) instead of 1A
burnt child dreads the fire'.
Lexical, morphological and syntactic changes may occur in the same sentence, and in fact
they often do. Here some examples of lexico-syntactical changes in proverbs: 'I'd rather have a bird
in the hand than one in the bush' (A. Taylor, B.J. Whiting); 'We take a stitch in time that may save
nine' (B. Stevenson); 'He had become aware that, though the storm clouds had unquestionably
gathered, there was a silver lining in them. What had happened, he was feeling, might after all be
for the best' (P.G. Wodehouse); "Hush, child!" the old woman said. "People won't find fault with
you if there is no fault. Where there's smoke there's a fire" (P. Abrahams); "I find Miss Dodd is like
most girls; out of sight is out of mind with her" (Ch. Reade); "There still remains the intensely
human instinct, which survives all the lectures of moralists, the desire to eat one's cake and also to
have it" (A.C. Benson).
In the following examples we may observe the combination of lexical and morphological
changes: "And as in this world actions will always be held to speak louder than words, not all her
subsequent scoffs at his expense can avail to remove from Burnet's mind the impression that his is
not only a welcome, but an invited presence". (R. Broughton). "What made you part from him?
Don't you ask questions, and you won't hear lies". (Th. Hardy). "Retire? Ha! I'd go to pieces like
that! Too late now. You get geared to a certain pressure. Remove the pressure and ... bingo! No,
I've made my bed and I've got to lie on it". (Gl. Hughes).
Rather often all three types of changes: lexical, morphological and syntactical are used
simultaneously. For instance: "If by any remote chance there should be a slip between the cup and
the lip, Charles Ventnor might be in the soup - a position which he deprecated both by nature and
profession". (J. Galsworthy). "What's today - Thursday? This'll be Bentworth's board day. Shall we
strike while the iron's hot? We'll very likely catch him at Burton's." "If the frost holds, will you be
inclined for another lesson or two? There is nothing like making hay when the sun shines - say
tomorrow?" (R. Broughton). "He was a burnt child, and dreaded the fire of female eyes". (T.W.
Peacock). "Careless of the disapproval of Aunt Pitty's friends, she behaved as she had behaved
before her marriage - went to parties, danced, went riding with soldiers, flirted, did everything she
had done as a girl, except stop wearing mourning. This she knew would be a straw that would
break the backs of Pittypat and Melanie. She was as charming a widow as she had been a girl". (M.
Mitchell). "There was a softness in Roy's voice such as I imagined he would use if he were telling
a prospective father that his wife was about to gratify his wishes. It cut no ice with me. "Come off
it, Ray," I said. "I am too old a bird to be caught with chaff. Spit it out". (W.S. Maugham). The
translation of the proverb depends on the fact whether it used as a self dependent and is not bund to
the context or whether it is a part of the text and has a very close connection with the context.
2.7. Biblical Proverbs. The Bible is the book that contains the sacred writings of the
Jewish and Christian religions. In "Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English" there are the
following definitions: "Bible is the holy book of Christians, consisting of the Old Testament and the
New Testament";"Bible is the holy book of Jews; the Old Testament".27
The Jewish Bible is a collection of ancient Hebrew sacred writings, also forms the first section of
the Christian Bible, the Old Testament. Christians and Jews alike regard it as the record of a
covenant, or "testament", made by God with man and revealed to Moses on Mt. Sinai. Christians
believe that Jesus Christ proclaimed a new covenant that both fulfilled and superseded the
covenant revealed to Moses. Thus, the books that contain the record of the ministry of Jesus and his
disciples are called the New Testament, and they form the second section of the Christian Bible.
Most of the Old Testament books were written in Hebrew, although a few passages are in the
Aramaic language, which the Jews spoke after the fourth century B.C. The authorship of the Old
Testament books is traditionally attributed to several great leaders in the Jewish past, among them
Moses, Samuel, David, Solomon, and various prophets. However, modern scholarship has concluded
that many of the books are late compilations of early traditions and writings. The Book of Genesis, for
example, contains many passages composed in the tenth century B.C. that record traditions already
800 years old, but the entire book was probably not written down in its present form until the fifth
century B.C.
The books of the New Testament were written during the century after Jesus' death. They were
probably written in Greek, although it is possible that one or two books were written in Aramaic and
later translated into Greek. They, are traditionally considered, to have been written by the
apostles and disciples of Jesus. Modern scholars, however, have questioned the apostolic
authorship of several.28
The list of books that a religion considers inspired and has adopted as its scripture is known
as a canon. The canons of the Old and New Testament developed gradually, and became fixed
many years after their component books were written. The canon of Jewish scripture was probably
completed during the second century B.C., in the Hasmonean period. The biblical books were
arranged in three groups: the Torah (also known as the Law or the Pentateuch), consisting of the first
five books of the Bible; The Prophets, consisting of books of history and prophecy; and the Holy
Writings, containing narratives, poems, prayers, and maxims. A council of rabbis met at Jamnia
(Jabneh) in the last decade of the first century A.D. and discussed whether or not to exclude a
small number of previously accepted books from the canon. It decided to retain them.
The Christian Old Testament canon has a somewhat different history. During the third and second
centuries B.C., Greek-speaking Jews had made a Greek translation of the Hebrew religions books that
were known as the Septuagint. The books of the Septuagint were arranged in a somewhat different order
- Pentateuch, Historical Books, Poetical or Didactic Books, and Prophetical Books - and contained
certain writings excluded from the rabbinic canon. Since Christianity first spread among the Greeks,
the earliest Christian ..Old Testament was the Septuagint. Today, both Roman Catholic and Eastern
Orthodox Old Testaments consist of the Septuagint books arranged in the Septuagint order. The
Protestant Old Testament contains only those books regarded as canonical by the Jews, but it still
preserves the Septuagint order. The works not included in the Jewish canon are either omitted or put in
a separate section called the Apocrypha.
Just as with the Old Testament, the list of Christian writings that were considered canonical
varied over the centuries. The present list of 27 canonical New Testament books, followed by all
major Christian sects, had appeared by A.D. 367. It was declared official in A.D. 405.29
Most of the Old Testament books were written in Hebrew, although a few passages are in the
Aramaic language. The books of the New Testament were written during the century after Jesus' death.
They were probably written in Greek, although it is possible that one or two books were written in
Aramaic and later translated into Greek. The history of the Bible translation into English falls into two
periods: the Middle Ages and the modern era. First of all I would like to examine the Old English
Period (The Middle Ages). From the seventh-century conversion of the Anglo-Saxons until the
Reformation, the Vulgate, or Latin, Bible of the Roman Catholic Church was the only Bible considered
authoritative in Britain. Its expounders and commentators were the clergy educated in Latin, who
transmitted the word of Scripture to laymen through sermons and moral writings in English. But
 many of the clergy, especially in the early days, were poorly grounded in Latin, and most laymen
could not read Latin at all. The clergy needed an English guide to the Latin text, and the laymen
desired a rendering into his own speech. Since the Gospels and Psalms were the portions of the Bible
most used in the Church service, they were the portions most frequently translated. However, the
earliest attempts to render the Bible into English were not, strictly speaking, translations at all.
They were free paraphrases in verse of well-known biblical narratives.
Sporadic and fragmentary efforts toward actual translation seem to have begun in the eight
century. The great historian Bede (673-735) translated the Greed, the Lord's Prayer, and part of the
Gospel of John. King Alfred (849-899) translated the Ten Commandments and some other parts of
the Bible.
Toward the close of the tenth century, many translations were being made. The tenth-century West
Saxon Gospels are a complete version of the Gospels, possibly by three translators. About 990, there
were produced versions of several Old Testament books, including the entire Pentateuch, Joshua,
Judges, Kings, and several of the Apocrypha. Then the Bible translation stopped as England
plunged into the dark age of Danish and Norman conquest. But in the more settled 13-th century (The
Middle English Period started), translation began again. The English language had undergone radical
changes since the Norman Conquest, and the translations of the Old English period could no longer
be understood. Many of the new renderings of the Bible into English fall into the category of
religious literature rather than strict translation.
Toward the latter part of the 14-th century the first complete Bible in English appeared. This
was the so-called Wycliffe Bible.30
The Protestant translators of the Reformation abandoned the Vulgate as the primary source
for their versions. Hebrew and Greek, virtually unknown in the
West during the Middle Ages, were being studied by the humanist scholars of the Renaissance,
and comparison of the Hebrew and Greek texts of the Bible with the Latin text of the Vulgate
revealed inconsistencies and inaccuracies.
Reformation translators, who had broken with the Roman Catholic Church, were unwilling to
base their versions on the Bible of Rome. Thus, Protestant Bibles were usually translations
from the original languages. I should also mention the first Protestant translator of the Bible
-William Tyndale (1490-1536). In the 1537 appeared a new translation of the Bible. The text of that
version is almost entirely Tyndale's with the addition of a large number of doctrinal notes. That
translation was called "The Matthew's Bible". Then appeared another translations: "The Geneva
Bible", "The Great Bible", "The King James Version".
During the reign of the first of the Stuart monarchs, James I (reigned 1603-1625), the
Authorized or "King James" translation of the Bible into English was published (1611). The King
James Bible represented not only the most advanced biblical scholarship of the era but also one of the
masterworks of English prose in an age noted for the flourishing of the written word. This translation
was built on the work of a series of predecessors, including William Tyndale and Miles
Coverdale, who in turn had drawn on the direct access to Greek and Hebrew texts that had been the
fruit of the Humanist movement of the Renaissance.
For over 400 years the King James Version has had a sort of official status among English-
speaking Protestants. The movement toward modernization culminated in 1870 in the appointment
by the Convocation of Canterbury of a committee of Anglican and non-Anglican scholars to revise
the King James text. The revisers were to make the King James translation more accurate, in the light
of the enormous advances in scholarship made in the course of the century; to make it a little closer
linguistically to contemporary speech; and to make it more consistent internally by always
translating one word in the original with the same English word. But the revisers were
instructed to keep to 17-th century English in their changes, which limited the work of linguistic
renovation.
The Revised Version (New Testament 1881, Old Testament 1885, Apocrypha 1895) is still
valuable to scholars because of its consistency and closeness to the original Hebrew and Greek. But
it had only a temporary general appeal, and did not succeed in displacing the King James Version in
either churches or private use.
In the United States, the Revised Version first appeared with an appendix of readings by American
scholars who had cooperated with the English revisers. In 1901 these readings were incorporated in
the text of what was thereafter known as the American Standard Version. This formed the basis of the
Revised Standard Version, sponsored by the International Council of Religions Education in 1937.
Dean Luther A. Weigle of Jale University supervised this version (New Testament 1946, Old Testament
1952). A new and updated edition was published in 1973.32
The New English Bible (New Testament 1961; combined with Old Testament and Apocrypha,
1969) is an entirely fresh rendering of the original sources into natural, current 20-th century English,
avoiding both 17-th century constructions and literal translation of idioms peculiar to Greek. It is thus
a complete departure from the Tyndale tradition.
There have been a number of unofficial versions, not sponsored or approved by church groups,
since the beginning of the 16-th century. Partial versions (Psalms, prayers, passages from the Gospel)
appeared in a series of primers from 1529 to 1545. Sir Thomas More translated portions of the Bible
during his imprisonment in the Tower of London in 1534 and 1535. Richard Taverner in 1539
revised Matthew's Bible. About 1550 Sir John Cheke translated the Gospel of Matthew in a strange
and moving style.
The Revised Version (New Testament 1881, Old Testament 1885, Apocrypha 1895) is still
valuable to scholars because of its consistency and closeness to the original Hebrew and Greek. But
it had only a temporary general appeal, and did not succeed in displacing the King James Version in
either churches or private use.
In the United States, the Revised Version first appeared with an appendix of readings by American
scholars who had cooperated with the English revisers. In 1901 these readings were incorporated in
the text of what was thereafter known as the American Standard Version. This formed the basis of the
Revised Standard Version, sponsored by the International Council of Religions Education in 1937.
Dean Luther A. Weigle of Jale University supervised this version (New Testament 1946, Old Testament
1952). A new and updated edition was published in 1973.32
The New English Bible (New Testament 1961; combined with Old Testament and Apocrypha,
1969) is an entirely fresh rendering of the original sources into natural, current 20-th century English,
avoiding both 17-th century constructions and literal translation of idioms peculiar to Greek. It is thus
a complete departure from the Tyndale tradition.
There have been a number of unofficial versions, not sponsored or approved by church groups,
since the beginning of the 16-th century. Partial versions (Psalms, prayers, passages from the Gospel)
appeared in a series of primers from 1529 to 1545. Sir Thomas More translated portions of the Bible
during his imprisonment in the Tower of London in 1534 and 1535. Richard Taverner in 1539
revised Matthew's Bible. About 1550 Sir John Cheke translated the Gospel of Matthew in a strange
and moving style.
Modern unofficial translation began with Andrews Norton, a Unitarian minister, who produced a
version of the Gospels in 1855. Other versions, which had some popularity and merit were The
Twentieth Century New Testament (1898-1901); Moffat's New Testament (1913); and Good-speed's
New Testament (1923), completed by others as the Bible: An American Translation (1931). One of
the most popular recent versions is J.B. Phillips' very colloquial arresting New Testament in
Modern English (1958). The Revised Standard Version Common Bible (1973), based upon the 1952
Revised Standard Version, is approved for use by the Eastern Orthodox, Protestant, and Roman
Catholic faiths. The Good New Bible, a modern-English translation of the Bible, was published by the
American Bible Society in 1976. Two revisions of the Bible appeared in 1982: the New King James
Version, which combined the clarity of modern speech with the literary style of the original King
Version, and the Reader's Digest Bible, a condensation of the Revised Standard Version.33
During the Middle Ages only portions of the Bible were translated until the end of the period, when
the first complete English Bible, the so-called Wycliffe Bible, was produced. Since the Reformation,
however, the Bible has been translated frequently. Most of these translations have been Protestant,
and the principal Protestant ones have been in a single continuous tradition, each drawing on and
sewing as a revision of its predecessor. There also existed a number of unofficial versions.
Biblical proverbs have spread all over the world with Christianity. Many of them have undergone a
change specific to the local traditions and way of life. The metaphorical use of proverbs comes on
the first plane34. A proverb used in the Bible is a biblical wisdom, statement, expressed in a sentence
or phrase. A proverb originates in different ways, it may come from life, it may be the borrowing from
other language, the famous saying of well-known people, some proverbs are created by individual
authors and some are taken from the Bible. The Bible consists of the Old Testament and the New
Testament. The Old Testament books were written in Hebrew, while the books of the New Testament
were written in Greek. The Bible was translated into English toward the latter part of the 14 th century.
Biblical proverbs may be found in all parts of the Bible, they have certain purely lexical and stylistic
features. There are many synonyms of biblical proverbs. Synonymy is associated with some
theoretical problems, which at present are an object of controversy. Proverbs exhibit most of the
stylistic devices: lexical, syntactical, lexico-syntactical stylistic devices, graphical and phonetic
expressive means. Let us now look at an experiment. A group of English speaking residents from
the USA and Moldova - a total of 5 in all, representing different spheres of education - were asked to
respond to the "proverb survey" consisting of 8 different items, each of which was to be evaluated as:
a) a proverb known to the respondent; b) a biblical proverb; c) a pseudo-biblical proverb.

The list began, with a widely-known proverb "As you sow, so you reap " - "что посеешь, то и
пожнешь ", one of the most frequently used sayings in an ongoing field study of proverbs among
speakers of English and Russian languages in Moldova. The proverb was taken from the Galatians
6:7. The second item on the list was not a less-known proverb employing the common formula "Do
not do something"; "Do not cast your pearls before swine" -"He мечите бисер (жемчуг)
перед свиньями". This proverb is from Matthew 7:6. The third and the fourth proverbs were "pseudo-
biblical": They were chosen not accidentally. People often use them in everyday conversation: "Do not
change horses in mid-stream " -"Коней на переправе не меняют "and "Through hardships to the stars
" - "Через терпи к звёздам ", (their origins were discussed in the previous chapter of my work). The
next two proverbs were biblical ones and finally the two last proverbs were pseudo-biblical.
The results of the survey have interesting, if highly tentative, implications in regard to the
perceptions of the biblical proverbs. Item 1, the "genuinely biblical" "As you sow, so you reap ", was
recognized as biblical proverb by 4 (80%) of the respondents and the second biblical (item 2)
by 4 (80%), too. One of the respondents considered the third item to be biblical 1 (20%), the same
variant with the fourth pseudo-biblical proverb. The fifth item (biblical) was recognized by 3 (60%)
and the sixth was marked by 5 (100%). One of the respondents recognized in "Brevity is the soul of
wit" - "Краткость душа ума " the biblical item though it is not so. As to the eighth variant nobody
mentioned it (pseudo-biblical). The complete list is as follows: 1)"As you sow, so you reap" (80%)
-"Что посеешь, то и пожнешь "; 2) "Do not cast your pearls before swine " (80%) - "He мечите
бисер (жемчуг) перед свиньями "; 3) "Don't change horses in mid-stream " (20%) - "Коней на
переправе не меняют "; 4) "Through hardship to the stars " (20%) -"Через терпи к звёздам "; 5) "Do
not put new wine into old bottles " (60%) - "He вливай вино в старую посуду"; 6) "A house divided
against itself cannot stand" (100%) - "Дом, в себе разделимый, устоять не сможет "; 7) "Brevity is
the soul of wit" (20%) -"Краткость душа ума";^)"Do not halloo till you out of wood" (0%) - "He
говори «ГОП!» пока не перепрыгнешь ".
Then all the respondents were asked to explain the meaning of the four biblical proverbs. The
list was as follows: I) "You cannot serve God and Mammon" (Matthew 6:24) -"Нельзя служить и
Богу, и Маммоне"; 2)"Stolen waters are sweet" (Proverbs 9:17) -"Запретный плод сладок"; ЗУ'А
house divided against itself cannot stand" (Matthew 12:25) - "Раздор между своими -междоусобица
"; 4)"A soft answer turns away wrath" (Proverbs 15:1) -"Кроткий ответ отвращает гнев
".
It was difficult for respondents to explain the first item. 80%, four persons couldn't say in what
situation they would use it. Only one respondent mentioned the problem of "faith". She said it was
necessary to choose between the life of an ordinary man and that who serves God. In the work
"Then and Now", W.S. Maugham wrote: "It was indeed a cause for rejoicing that in disposing of
their personal enemies they had done an important service to the Church. They proved that it was in
point of fact possible to serve God and Mammon".35
Synonyms of Biblical Proverbs. We can rarely find the synonyms of biblical proverbs in the
Bible. Most of them have another origins. What is considered to be the synonym of a proverb? Let us
agree that it is a phrase or a sentence synonymous (in other words having the same meaning or
nearly the same meaning) with a proverb.
In Matthew 7:1 we read: "Judge not, that you not be judged". This saying "is a statement of fact;
nothing makes us dislike a man so much as the knowledge that he is always iudsing us and all
man". The Russian equivalent is "Сам живи и другим не мешай". While working with the
dictionaries I found only two synonyms of this proverb: "Live and let live", "Bear and forbear".
Both of them are simple apothegms. They were repeated so many times that they gained
proverbial currency. Characteristic of such proverbs is the absence of metaphor. They consist merely
of a bald assertion, which is recognized as proverbial only because we have heard it often and can be
 applied to many different situations.
Another Biblical proverb "Pride goes before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall" or
simply "Pride goes before a fall" (Proverbs 16:18) may be translated into Russian as "Гордыня
предшествует падению " or "Гордыня до добра не доведёт ". The only synonym that I came across
is "The highest tree has the greatest fall". It is obvious that it is a metaphorical proverb. It is
considered that the most interesting and artistic. Proverbs arise from the metaphorical use of a simple
act or event. A new application of a familiar scene arrests our attention, imprints itself in our minds,
and drives home the lesson. Of all the ways in which proverbs develop, the most important is
illustrated by such extensions of the meaning of a simple phrase. By this process a sentence comes
to mean far more than the sum of the words composing it.
From 1 Corinthians 15:33 we quote "Evil communications corrupt good manners"
-"Худые сообщества развращают добрые нравы" или "Дурное окружение портит
хорошие манеры ". One of the synonyms of this Biblica proverb is "A man is known by the
company he keeps". A simple word in thi: proverb "company" points out a characteristic trait,
which seems to be hereditar) or at least dominant. "He that lies down with dogs must rise up with
pleas" is another synonym of the biblical one from 1 Corinthians. It reflects the observations of the
people. So, we can attribute these two synonyms to the proverbs inventec while observing the
scenes from everyday life.
The other biblical is "A soft answer turns away wrath" (Proverbs 15:1). The Russian equivalent
is "Мягкий ответ, и ярости нет". In this case we can examine the following synonym: "Softfire
makes sweet malt". It is interesting that is this example the adjective "soft" is preserved. Evidently,
this synonymous sentence was made on the old models. Of course, certain frames lend themselves
readily to the insertion of entirely new ideas. The biblical proverb "No man can serve two masters"
from Matthew 6:24 ("Двум господам не служат ") has the following synonyms: "One can't run with
the hare and hunt with the hounds ", "Between two stools one falls to the ground", "He that serves
everybody is paid by nobody". Though their structures are different, their meanings are the same.
They were invented in any moment of life as every aspect of life yields general advice, that is to say,
proverbs. As to the biblical proverb 'No man can server two masters ", there is one more synonym
"You cannot serve God and Mammon ". Why is it interesting for us? This synonym is from the Bible.
In the work of J. Rathbone we can observe these two synonyms being used in the same context, e.g.:
"No man can serve two masters: for... he will hold to one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God
and Mammon "36 There is no difference in the sentence meaning of "A soft answer turns away
wrath" and "Soft fire makes sweet malt". They are considered to be synonymous because both of them
mean - "what one gives that he receives". In this case we can speak about total synonymy, i.e.
synonymy where the members of a synonymic group can replace each other in any given context,
without the slightest alteration in denotative or emotional meaning. The same may be said about two
synonymous biblical proverbs "No man can serve two masters" and "You cannot serve God and
Mammon". "Judge not, that you not be judged" and "Live and let live", "Bear and forbear " are
contextual or context-dependent synonyms, the synonyms that are similar in meaning only under some
specific distributional conditions. By the very nature of language every word has its own history, its
own peculiar motivation, its own typical context. And, besides, there is always some hidden
possibility of different connotation and feeling in each of them. Moreover, words of the same
meaning as the synonymous sentences (proverbs) would be useless for communication: they would
encumber the language, not enrich it. If two words or synonymous sentences (proverbs) coincide in
meaning and use, the natural tendency is for one of them to change its meaning or drop out of the
language. The biblical proverb "Evil communications corrupt good manners" is not used in
everyday conversation unlike its synonym "A man is known by the company he keeps ", which one
can often hear nowadays.
A very important question is the grammatical structure of the proverbs. It seems reasonable
to me to present the classification of all above mentioned biblical proverbs and their synonyms
according to their grammatical structure. A proverb always has the structure of a sentence. It pursues
the didactic aim to learn, to caution. Unlike other phraseological types, the proverb has very often the
structure of a simple sentence. The sentence is a communicative unit, therefore, the primary
classification of sentences must be based on the communicative principle: a) the declarative sentences:
the biblical "Pride goes before a fall" and its synonym "The highest tree has the great fall", the biblical
"A soft answer turns away wrath " and the synonym "Softfire makes sweet malt". These sentences
express a statement, either affirmative or negative, and as such stand in systemic syntagmatic
correlation with the listener's signals of attention, of appraisal, including agreement or
disagreement, b) the imperative (inductive) sentences: the biblical "Judge not, that you not be judged"
and its synonyms "Live and let live", "Bear and forbear ". These sentences express inducement, either
affirmative or negative. That is, it urges the listener in the form of request or command, to perform or
not to perform a certain action. As such, the imperative biblical "Judge not, that you not be judged"
is situationally connected with the corresponding action response and lingually is systemically
correlated with a verbal response showing that the inducement is either complied with, or else rejected,
c) the interrogative sentences (there are no proverbs with the structure of the interrogative sentence).
Now, we turn our attention>to the simple sentence, a sentence in which only one predicative line is
expressed, e.g.: "Pride goes before a fall" or "The highest tree has the great fall". These simple
sentences are organized as a system of function -expressing positions, the content of the functions
being the reflection of a situational event. The nominative parts are subjects "pride", "tree", the
predicates are ''goes", "has". The parts are arranged in a hierarchy, wherein all of them perform
some modifying role. The ultimate and highest object of this integral modification is the sentence as a
whole, and through the sentence, the reflection of the situation (situational event). As usually, the
subject is a modifier of the predicate. The predicate is a process modifier of the subject. In the second
proverb "The highest tree has the great fall" the superlative degree "the highest" of an adjective
"high" is in the function of the prepositive attribute. The same picture may be observed in the
biblical proverb "A soft answer turns away wrath " and in its synonym "Soft fire makes sweet malt"
where the adjective "great" performs the function of postpositive attribute. The brightest example of
the simple negative sentence is the proverb "You can't serve God and Mammon " where the personal
pronoun "you" is in the function of a subject.
We must admit that the other proverbs, e.g.: "A man is known by the company
he keeps", "One can't run with the hare and hunt with the hounds" have the structure of the
compound sentence, that is a composite sentence built on the principle of coordination.
And now I would like to touch upon the question of the folkloristic structure of the biblical
proverbs and their synonyms (as distinguished from the linguistic structure of their grammar). All
biblical proverbs and those of other origins (their synonyms) contain in their structure a topic (A) and
a comment (B), it might be represented as an A=B equation 37, e.g.: "The borrower (A) is servant to
the lender (B)" (Proverbs 22:7) and its synonym "Whopays (A)plays the music (B)" (simple
apothegm). Other proverbs are oppositional, asserting a contrast or a lack of equivalence, such as "A
house divided against itself cannot stand" (Matthew 12:25) or "Two wrongs don't make right
"(simple apothegm), all of which suggest the A=B formula. Still other patterns are possible, e.g.: "His
eyes are bigger than his stomach "(simple apothegm) is A>B.
Many multidescriptive element proverbs (whether oppositional or nonoppositional) are
based on traditional semantic contrastive pairs, e.g.: "Ask and it will be given to you" (Matthew 7:7);
"Like people like priest" (Hosea 4:9) and its synonym "Like father like son" is a non-oppositional
example but "Man works from sun to sun, but woman's work is never done" (simple apothegm)
is oppositional. The synonym of a biblical proverb is a phrase or a sentence having the same meaning
or nearly the same. The grammatical structure of the synonymous sentence sometimes differs
from the grammatical structure of the biblical one. Some of biblical proverbs have the structure of
a simple sentence, they are organized as a system of function - expressing positions, the content
of the functions being the reflection of a situational event. Some are compound sentences, they are the
composite sentences built on the principle of coordination. Because biblical proverbs are short, pithy
commor and extremely varied, they offer many interesting possibilities for analysis whicl" often leads
to better understanding of other aspects of culture. Although rigidity o: form constitutes an essential
characteristic of proverbs, scholarly efforts to describe and study it have been not very profitable. I
would like to examine the style o: "Proverbs" (The book of Proverbs from the Bible), a collection of
wise sayings and good advice for daily living that cover many different subjects, including
marriage, social behavior, friendship, justice, folly, poverty, wealth, family, love laziness and warnings
against drinking and adultery.
Proverbs exhibit most of the stylistic devices, those based on the binary opposition of lexical
meanings regardless of the syntactical organization of the utterance (lexical stylistic devices), based on
the binary opposition of syntactica meanings regardless of their semantics (syntactical stylistic
devices), based on the binary opposition of lexical meanings accompanied by fixed syntactica
organization of employed lexical units (lexico-syntactical stylistic devices) and those based on the
opposition of meanings of phonological and graphical element:
of the language (graphical and phonetic stylistic means). I would like to single out the following main
groups of stylistic devices found in "The Book of Proverbs": a) Lexical Stylistic Devices -hyperbole,
epithet - the stylistic devices based on the interaction between the logical and emotive meanings of
a word. Hyperbole is: common element in Proverbs, which explains why so many are
misinterpreted. Hyperbole is a deliberate exaggeration of some quantity, quality, size, etc. Unless
this is recognized all sorts of strange readings are possible. For example: "Does the Lord deport
unbelievers? ", "Are the wicked incapable of any good deed?", "Do wise men go around attacking
cities? ", "Will looking at the Crown Jewels make them vanish?". In all of these examples the answer
is "no" because hyperbole is being used, e.g. the righteous enjoy a security that the Lord alone
provides; the wicked man is characterized by cruelty; to be wise is better than to have military strength,
and the pursuit of happiness through wealth is like chasing a shadow. From the strongest means of
displaying the writer's or speaker's attitude to his communication, we now pass to the most explicitly
subjective stylistic device -epithet: word-epithet, that is a rare but interesting case in Proverbs,
expressed by any notional part of speech in the attributive or adverbial function, e.g.: "harmless soul",
"crying heart".
b) Syntactical Stylistic Devices - inversion, repetition, parallelism. Inversion, which deals
with the displacement of the predicate (complete inversion), e.g.: "Sin, haughty eyes and a proud
heart, the lamp of the wicked, are ", another kind of inversion deals with the displacement of the
secondary members of the sentence (partial inversion)", is not the common case in Proverbs, but still
it is observed there, e.g.: "Then out came a woman to meet him". We may come across another
syntactical stylistic device - repetition, an expressive means of language used when the speaker is
under the stress of strong emotion, e.g.: "My son, do not go along with them, do not set foot on their
paths"; "Let the wise listen and add to their learning, and let the discerning get guidance", "May her
breasts satisfy you, may you ever be captivated by her love". Many of biblical proverbs came from
King Solomon. Other proverbs were copied by the men of Hezekiah. Agur and Lemuel wrote the last
two chapters. These sayings (proverbs) are expressed in Hebrew poetry in a variety of forms. The
writers make use of the same parallelism as are found in Psalms, e.g. synonymous parallelism: "A
wicked man listens to evil lips; a liar pays attention to a malicious tongue", "A gift given in secret
soothes anger, and a bribe concealed in the cloak pacifies great wrath". Another common device is
the so-called x/x+1 device, e.g. "Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise!", this
involves the use of the formula: "There are (x) things that... (x+1) things that...", e.g.: "There are
six things that the Lord hates, seven that are detestable to him". Such devices serve as an aid to
memorization.
c) Lexico-Svntactical Stylistic Devices - in "The Book of Proverbs" we may
observe only simile, a structure of two components joined by a fixed range of link
adverbs, e.g.: "All at once he followed her like an ox going to the slaughter, like a
deer stepping into a noose, like a bird darting into a snare".
d) Graphical and Phonetic Expressive Means. The change type - italics represents
graphical expressive means in "The Book of Proverbs", all the titles are written in
it, e.g.: "Warning Against Enticement", "Warning Against Rejecting Wisdom",
"Wisdom is Supreme", etc. Proverbs exhibit most of the stylistic devices of poetry
and one can observe the following pnonetic expressive means - alliteration, meter,
rhyme. Meter, the actual alternation of stress, which appears as a result of
interaction between the ideal metrical law and the natural phonetic properties of
the given language material may be found in the Proverbs, e.g.: "The fear of the
Lord is the beginning of knowledge". Another stylistic device is rhyme, the
repetition of identical or similar terminal sound combinations of words, e.g.:
"When you lie down, your sleep will be sweet". Alliteration aims at imparting a
melodic effect to the utterance, e.g.: "Such is the end of all who go after ill-gotten
gain", "How long will mockers delight in mockery?". The essence of this device
lies in the repetition of similar sounds, in close succession, particularly at the
beginning of successive words38.
Although there is an important theological element in Proverbs, e.g.: "The fear of the Lord is
the beginning of knowledge", "Fear the Lord and the king", "Blessed is the man who always
fears the Lord" their emphasis is very much on practical matters such as how to live successfully
and have a rewarding life. Proverbs are not legally binding promises from God. He will not always
 demolish your neighbours' house because he or she won't go to church with you, e.g.: "The house
of the wicked will be destroyed, but the tent of the upright will flourish",God won't underwrite
whatever foolish thing you describe to do, e.g.: "Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and your
plans will succeed", not are Christian parents guaranteed that their children will become believers,
e.g.: "Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it".
The characters described in Proverbs are often misunderstanding. A "fool" is not a dimwit but
an unbelieving pagan, e.g.: "The way of a fool seems right to him, but a wise man listens to advice
", his life is sure to end in ruin because he has rejected the source of true wisdom - the Lord
himself. The "simple", e.g.: "For' giving prudence to the simple, knowledge and discretion to the
young" can be best defined as "... those who are easily persuaded and who lack judgement",
e.g.: "Let all who are simple come in here! she says to those who lack judgement", who are
immature, inexperienced and naive. The "sluggard" is an unproductive, lazy, good-for-nothing.
Such a person will never succeed at anything he does because he never does anything, e.g.: "As
vinegar to the teeth and smoke to the eyes, so is a sluggard to those who send him ", "He who
works his land will have abundant food, but he who chases fantasies lack judgement", "A hard
work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty ", "Do not love sleep or you will grow
poor; stay awake and you will have food to spare". Two of the major themes of the books are
"Wisdom and Folly". They are often personified as an elegant hostess, e.g.: "Wisdom calls aloud in
the street, she raises her voice in the public square" , "Blessed is the man who finds wisdom",
"Does not wisdom call out?" and a shabby adulteress, e.g.: "My son, keep your father's
commands and do not forsake your mother's teaching", "The woman Folly is loud; she is
undisciplined and without knowledge" respectively.
Proverbs have to be fully contextualised in order to be fully understood, e.g. "He who loves a
pure heart and whose speech is gracious will have the king for his friend" can hardly be applied
directly today when royalty occupies a far different role to that which is held in ancient Israel. A
modern application might be that the Lord grants the righteous favour with those in positions of
authority. Likewise the proverb "Better to live on a corner of the roof than share a house with
a quarrelsome wife" is not saying that it is better to live in a precarious position on top of a
house. Unlike the people in Old Testament times we do not live in houses with flat roofs, which
often had a room in which people could sleep. Today we would say that it is better to live in the
attic or the garage than with a quarrelsome wife (that you should never have married).
In biblical proverbs one can come across most of the stylistic devices: lexical stylistic
devices - hyperbole, epithet; syntactical stylistic devices - inversion, repetition, parallelism;
lexico-syntactical stylistic devices - simile; and graphical and phonetic stylistic means - italics;
alliteration, meter, rhyme.
Disintegration of the Biblical Proverb. In this part of the research I would like to touch
upon the question of the disintegration of a biblical proverb. Some proverbs of biblical origin
gradually become the vague, inaccurate reminiscences. The biblical "A living dog is better than a
dead lion " (Eccles. 9:4) has, for example, suffered little alteration. Indeed, the lack of freedom in
its use and the bookish atmosphere in which it seems most at home makes one inclined to regard
it as a learned or semi-learned phrase which has never quite become a popular proverb. A
characteristic alteration is seen in the popular forms of the Biblical "Everyone that doeth.evil
hateth the light" (John 3:20). It exists as a simple quotation from the Bible "He that doeth evil,
hateth the light". Earlier than this, about the end of the fifteenth century we find "The evil one
avoids the light as the Devil the Cross ". The comparison with the Devil, which is apparently a
medieval invention and addition, is a typical modification of a Biblical proverb: the maxim is
made more effective by a picturesque and vividly conceived scene. No particular form of this
proverb seems to have definitely established itself in the European proverbial stock.
Another characteristic development is seen in "Money is the root of all evil", which has sprung
frorr "The love of money is the root of all evil" (I Timothy 6:10). The shift from the abstract to the
concrete adapts the sententious apothegm into the direct anc suggestive proverb. We have the same
sort of thing in "Pride goes before a fall", which derives immediately from "Pride goeth before
destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall" (Proverbs 16:18). Once the substitution of "fall"
for "destruction" had occurred, the forces of parallelism and contrast could create "Pride goes
before and shame comes after".
There are many proverbs, which do not show such obvious and unmistakable relations to the
Biblical sources as those mentioned thus far. "Man proposes, but God disposes" has a long history
which probably begins with "A man's heart devises his way: but the Lord directs his steps" (Proverbs
16:9). A proverb which diverges far from its Biblical source is "The more he has, the more he
wants", which may conceivably arise from "He that loves silver shall not be satisfied with silver; nor
he that loves abundance with increase: this is also vanity" (Eccles. 5:9). The old proverb gives us a
modern advertising slogan: "The more you eat, the more you want". Occasionally we trace the origin of
a Biblical proverb to a single version.
As a contrast, we may study the history of "One should louse fools with clubs ". This proverb is
evidently derived from such Biblical passages as "A rod is for the back of him that is void of
understanding" (Proverbs 10:13); "And stripes for the back of fools " (Proverbs 19:29); and "a rod for
the fool's back" (Proverbs 26:3). It established itself in its present form before the appearance of
Luther's translation and persists tradition, not withstanding the enormous influence, which so widely
accepted a version must have.
Direct contact with the Biblical text has not been the sole source of tradition. Where it is possible
to identify the folk, we can often trace it back to some content. Quotation in preaching and in
ecclesiastical writing was abundant and careless and favored the risk of minor variations. We can at
times catch a church writer in the very act of reshaping a Biblical phrase. For example "There are
three things which do not let a man stay at home: smoke, dripping and an evil wife ". We are not able
to identify positively the inventor of "Man proposes, but God disposes ", but, as we have seen its
inventor was an active man in ecclesiastical life and writings. The limits within which the inventor of
"The tongue breaks bone, though itself have none " occurred cannot be drawn so closely. Obviously it
is derived from "A soft tongue breaks the bone" (Proverbs 25:15) or "A blow of the tongue breaks
the bones" (Ecclis. 28:21) but since characteristic proverbial modifications are found both in Greek
and in Latin. I must conclude that the transformation took place at an early time.
The process of disintegration of the biblical proverb changes its grammatical structure and leads
to the appearance of different stylistic devices, the most common stylistic device is parallelism.
Types of Variation of the Biblical Proverb. Another important problem is the problem of variations
of biblical proverbs. Sometimes we can see that in this sample of biblical proverbs there is much more
evidence of a variant form occurring than the citation form of the proverb. There are variations for
ten of the thirteen biblical proverbs and for nine of these there is a much greater likelihood of a
proverb occurring in a variant form than there is in its original citation form. The most extreme
example of this phenomena is the biblical proverb "The last straw that breaks the camel's back" which
occurs only several times in citation form but many times in a contracted form "the last straw ".
We should then consider the findings for the biblical proverb variations and see how far they differ
from those for citation forms. To make the survey I will use the following biblical proverbs: "Stolen
waters are sweet"( Proverbs 9:17); "It's better to give than to receive "( Acts 20:35); "The love of
money is the root of all evil"( 1 Timothy 6:10); "Pride goes before destruction, and an haughty spirit
before a fall"( Proverbs 16:18); "Better a dinner of herbs where love is than a stalled ox where hate
is"( Proverbs 15:17); "Ask and it will be given you" (Matthew 7:7); "Money answers all things "(
Eccles. 10:19); "Do not cast your pearls before swine "( Matthew 7:6). In this account of proverb
variation I will use the following typographic conventions: the base form of the proverb will be shown
in italics; while a novel element or variation will be underlined. I identified four major types of
variation from the citation form of proverbs; these are summarised in table below (see table 3).
Contraction is the most common type of variation. Antonyms and expansions were of equal
importance. It is worth noting that all the proverbs analysed for variations exhibited more than one of
the variation types. We may also note that in one case there is an evidence of more than one type of
variation at work. However, such cases are rare and it is generally possible to classify each of the
lines according to the predominant variation type. The fact that the same citation form can undergo a
range of variations and even exhibit more than one variation simultaneously should alert us to the
fact that when users of English seek some form of creative modification they are not constrained by
the nature of the process. In some situations they will select a substitution while in others they will
select a contraction - while in a very few cases they may choose both - according to their particular
rhetorical intentions. In these cases, probably typical of media language, there is an attempt at creative
reinvention of the proverb citation form and, in contemporary language, proverb variation is driven
by stylistic considerations that combine innovation with humour. In fact, we may even interpret these
variations as a component in a general category of persuasive language of increasing use in
advertising, newspapers and other contemporary media. My suggestion here is that a paremiological
minimum should be based on both the most frequent citation forms of proverbs and on the proverb
variations. At this point, I will consider some of the stylistic features of the proverbs that enhance the
possibility of their survival in our millennium. I would like to examine three stylistic features:
brevity, alliteration and repetition. Brevity is clearly a vital characteristic of speech economy
central to proverb survival. We may note that many of the citation forms are already base forms
and could not readily be shortened further while retaining the same meaning. Contraction is nothing
other than a process of adaptation by proverbs to the contemporary norms of communication that
place an emphasis on brevity and economy of effort. We can see clear evidence that the shorter the
proverb type, the more people use it, e.g. two word biblical proverb such as "Heal yourself" (Luke
4:23) occurs the most frequently in everyday conversation. Conversely, long biblical proverbs such as
"A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country" (Matthew 13:57) or "Greater love has
no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13) have a very low
frequency. It seems, then, that the key factor in biblical proverb vitality is the brevity of expression
quite apart from the apparent value or truth of the semantic content. However, there are other
stylistic considerations that are found in the most frequent biblical proverb citation forms: in
particular repetition is, perhaps, the most important characteristic of proverb vitality; we may note:
"Like people, like priest" (Hosea 4:9), "An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth" (Matthew 5:38).
Of course repetition also involves alliteration and it seems that their combined effect is to serve as a
mnemonic that can ensure the ongoing popularity of a proverb form. These phonetic and rhythmic
features are found to a much lesser extent in the proverb variations.

The long forms of biblical proverbs don't survive in English language, they are undergoing the
process of creative adaptation and modification. These processes lead to the beginning of the variants
of biblical proverbs. Their main features of the variants are length and repetition. Contraction,
substitution and expansion are the most common types of variation of biblical proverbs. A biblical
proverb is wisdom, statement, expressed in a sentence or phrase. The synonym of a biblical proverb is
a phrase or a sentence having the same meaning or nearly the same. Most of the synonyms of
biblical proverbs have other origins. The grammatical structure of the synonymous sentence
sometimes differs from the grammatical structure of the biblical one. Some of biblical proverbs have
the structure of a simple sentence, they are organized as a system of function - expressing positions,
the content of the functions being the reflection of a situational event. Some are compound
sentences, they are the composite sentences built on the principle of coordination. Biblical proverbs
exhibit most of the stylistic devices, those based on the binary opposition of lexical meanings
regardless of the syntactical organization of the utterance (lexical stylistic devices - hyperbole,
epithet); based on the binary opposition of syntactical meanings regardless of their semantics
(syntactical stylistic devices - inversion, repetition, parallelism); based on the binary opposition of
lexical meanings accompanied by fixed syntactical organization of employed lexical units (lexico-
syntactical stylistic devices - simile) and those based on the opposition of meanings of
phonological and graphical elements of the language (graphical and phonetic stylistic means -
italics; alliteration, meter, rhyme). A slight disintegration of the biblical proverb changes it and its
grammatical structure. Biblical proverbs are undergoing the processes of creative adaptation and
modification in contemporary English language use. The longer is the biblical proverb the less it is
likely to survive in its citation form and the greater is the need for abbreviation to maintain its
vitality. Length and repetition are the main features of the variants of biblical proverbs. The
modified form has, in some cases, replaced the original citation form of the biblical proverb as a
result of contraction, substitution and expansion that are the most common types of variation of
biblical proverbs.
2.8. Translation of Proverbs
Equivalent Translation - when an English proverb has its Romanian or Russian equivalents
fully corresponding in lexical and syntactical structure and in imagery. For example: The appetite
comes with eating — Pofta vine mâncând. Аппетит приходит во время еды. All roads lead to
Rome - Toate căile duc la Roma - Все дороги ведут в Рим. Best defense is offence (attack) – Cea
mai bună apărare este atacul (ofensiva). Лучшая защита - нападение. Better late than never – Mai
bine mai târziu decât niciodată — Лучше поздно, чем никогда.
As a rule such proverbs that are translated by means of absolute equivalent are international
ones. They may be found in most European language maintaining the same lexical and syntactical
structure. In most cases they have a common origin. Such proverbs may have biblical,
mythological or literary character or they may have been borrowed from Latin or Greek languages.
Absolute equivalent are limited, their number being rather few.
2.. Relative equivalents correspond to the original in imagery and style, but differ either in
their lexical, morphological or syntactical arrangement: A good name is better than riches -
Numele bun e mai bun ca (mai scump decât) aurul - Добрая слава дороже богатства. Praise a
fair day at night – Laudă ziua după ce apune soarele – Хвали день по вечеру, а жизнь по смерти.
Among relative equivalents the most frequent are those with lexical discrepancies, less
frequent - with morphological and syntactical differences. Relative equivalents are rather
numerous, much more wide-spread than the absolute equivalents.

Analogues Translation.

It is the most wide spread method of translating proverbs. An analogue is such an expression
(a proverb in our case) that is equivalent to the English one in meaning, but differs partially or
completely in imaginary. It is important in such cases to render the figurativeness, expressiveness
and the emotional coloring of the original adequately in the Russian translation though the images
can be changed. Let us consider the following examples: E.g. Hawks will not pick hawk's eyes out
– Corb la corb nu-şi scoate ochii - Ворон ворону глаз не выклюет. Here the image is changed
partially. A man’s hat in his hand never did him any harm – Vorba dulce mult aduce (Vorba bună pe
nimeni nu supără; De vorbă bună nu te doare gura) – Доброе слово никогда не обидит. Ласковое
слово не трудно, да скоро. Here the image is changed completely. These examples illustrate that,
though the grammatical structures of these sentences are alike, the lexics is different. Sometimes,
together with the image, the grammatical structure of the unit is changed. Notwithstanding the fact
whether the translation by means of analogues changes the image completely or partially, the
figurativeness, metaphorical coloring and the sense of the English proverbs are preserved.
Loan Translation. This method is used when the main purpose of the translator is to retain the
figurativeness and to stress the imaginary used in the English original and when the expression can
not be rendered in any other way, by means of equivalent or analogue. But this method can be used
only if as a result of this translation we have an expression whose figurativeness is easily
understood and does not strike as unnatural or unusual. Loan translation is used mainly while
translating neutral proverbs, which have no bright national coloring or are international. The loan
translation of proverbs having national coloring is possible very rarely-only in case the translated
image is clear to the Russian render. Sometimes an additional (supplementary) translation is used to
make the meaning of the English proverb more comprehensible. E.g. When the fox preaches, take
care of your geese - Când vulpea citeşte o predică, ai grijă de gâştile tale - Когда лиса начинает
читать проповеди, загоняй гусей. What is the sauce for the goose is a sauce for the gander – Ce-i
bine pentru unul, e bine şi pentru toţi - Что хорошо для одного, хорошо и для других. Что соус
для гусыни, то соус и для гусака. Man is to man a wolf - Omul pentru om este lup - Человек
человеку волк. The figurativeness and the image are fully preserved in the loan translation.
Antonymic -translation, i.e. when the negative meaning in the English proverb is
conveyed by a positive one into Romanian and Russian, or vice versa, e.g.:
Catch the bear before you sell his skin – Nu împărţi pielea ursului înainte de al fi împuşcat -
He дели шкуру неубитого медведя; The leopard cannot change his spots – Lupul părul îşi
schimbă da năravul ba - Горбатого могила исправит; Bread never falls but on its buttered side –
Pâinea întotdeauna cade cu partea unsă cu unt— Бутерброд всегда маслом вниз падает. As a rule
antonymic translation is accompanied by changes of lexical and syntactical arrangement. Like
absolute equivalents antonymic translation is not very numerous.
Much more difficulties in translation of proverbs appear when they are used in a certain
context and are closely connected with it. Here the translation also depends on whether the proverb
is used as it is without any changes, or whether it is innovated in the text. When used in their
original form proverbs are mostly translated by means of analogue. There are cases even when
there are analogues or equivalents of English proverbs in the target languages, but translators use
the method of free translation as it requires the context, e.g.: "Verges: Yes, I thank God, I am as
honest as any man living, that is an old man, and no honester than I. "Tanner: ... sit down again and
be friendly. A cat may look at a king, and even a President of brigands may look at your sister. All
this family pride is very old fashioned" (B. Shaw, "Man and Superman"). - "Тэннер: ... сядьте
снова на свое место и будьте полюбезнее. У каждого есть свои права, и даже главарь
разбойничьей шайки может смотреть на вашу сестру. Вся эта семейная гордость
совершенно устарела."
When proverbs are innovated in the text that is they undergo certain lexical, morphological,
or syntactical changes, they are more often translated by means of analogue. "There was a political
ring in Philadelphia in which the major, certain members of the council, the treasurer, the chief of
police... and others shared. It was a case generally of "You'll scratch my back and I'll scratch yours"
(Th. Dreiser, "The Financier") - "В Филадельфии существовала политическая клика, в которую
входили материально-энергетических ресурсов города, некоторые члены муниципального
совета, казначей, начальник полиции ... и другие. Они придерживались принципа "Рука руку
моет."
"If you are wise, George, you'll go to your office and write me your check for three hundred
thousand dollars. You can't be hung any more for a sheep than you can for a lamb" (Th. Dreiser,
"The Financier"). - N"Mofi совет вам, Джордж, ступайте к себе в муниципалитет и выпишите
мне чек на триста тысяч долларов... Семь бед - один ответ." The innovated proverbs may be
also translated by analogues with some changes, e.g.: "Take counsel by an old soldier, who fully
practices what he preaches, and beseeches you to beware of the bottle" (W. Thackeray, "The
Newcomes") - "Послушайте старого солдата, у которого слова никогда не расходятся с делом
и который просит вас остерегаться бутылки."
Thus, the most frequent method of translations of proverbs that are used apart and are not
dependent on the context is analogue, the cases of relative equivalents and calque, or loan
translation are not so numerous, and absolute equivalents and antonymic translation are rarely
applied. When proverbs are part of the context and they remain unchanged they are usually
translated by means of analogue, but when their lexical, or morphological, or syntactical
arrangement is changed then they are usually translated word for word, i.e. by loan translation.

CONCLUSIONS
The English language is rich in various phraseological units and idioms proper word equivalents
and especially, sentence-equivalents, like sayings and proverbs. They are often used in every-day
speech, as well as in fiction and make our speech more vivid colourful and expressive. This
graduation thesis is dedicated to the research of English proverbs and their specific features. Thus,
the general aim of this work was to study and point out the most essential characteristics of English
proverbs that make them so bright, expressive, popular and memorable.
In Chapter I. Proverbs in the English Language we have analysed the definition and origin of
proverbs, their classification and structure, changeability and unchangeability, constant variant
dependence and content, types of phraseological meanings of proverbs and the sociolinguistic
character of proverbs. In Chapter II. Style, Structure and Translation of the English Proverbs our
research dealt with stylistic devices in English proverbs, lexical and stylistic means of their
formation, morphological constituents and syntactic analysis of proverbs. An important part of this
chapter is the analysis of various types of translations of proverbs from English into Romanian with
occasional examples of translation into Russian as well. Most of the English proverbs were
supplied with their equivalents in Romanian.
As a result of the investigation stylistic devices, that are most frequently used in the
formation of proverbs, have been singled out, these are alliteration and rhyme among phonetic
stylistic devices, parallelism, chiasmus, ellipsis and repetition among syntactical stylistic devices,
metaphor, personification, antonomasia and simile among lexical stylistic devices and antithesis
among lexical-syntactic stylistic devices. They all contribute to the brevity, laconism, brightness
and expressiveness of proverbs. The second step is morphological analysis of proverbs. Here the
most important parts of speech that make up proverbs have been studied. The investigation has
resulted in the fact that among notional parts of speech the most frequent are the verb and the noun
performing various syntactic functions. As to the verb, it is represented both in finite and non-finite
forms and the latter bear the same functions as the noun.
Then the syntactical structure of English proverbs is analyzed. Thus, the proverbs are more
often expressed in simple expanded sentences than in unexpanded ones. Composite sentences: both
compound and complex are as well very frequently used in the formation of proverbs. Here the
most typical syntactic structures have been pointed out. Sentences have been also classified on the
basis of the purpose of communication and it has been found out that the majority of proverbs are
declarative and declarative-imperative sentences. Then there is an observation of the usage of
proverbs in literature and survey of lexical, morphological and syntactical changes they undergo
while used in a certain context. This part also deals with the problems of translation of English
proverbs into the Russian language and here the most frequent ways and techniques of their
translation are distinguished. It is stated that most of English proverbs, having their correspondence
in Russian are translated by means of analogue. But in the cases when there are no Romanian or
Russian equivalents and it is necessary to render certain peculiarities and national colouring of
English proverbs they are translated word for word or descriptively. Having studied the theory of
this issue and analyzed more than 700 English proverbs and more than 400 Romanian (and a
limited number of Russian) translations I have come to the following conclusions:
1. The proverb may be defined as a short popular metaphorical saying, having a fixed
specific rhythmic-phonetic arrangement expressing a common truth or useful advice based on
experience, which are usually of unknown or non-traced origin;
2. Proverbs are very expressive and vivid due to numerous stylistic devices used in them.
As proverbs are mostly spoken than written, phonetic stylistic devices play a very important role in
their formation. These are alliteration, rhyme and rhythm. We may observe a great variety of
rhymes in English proverbs: complete male and complete female rhymes, incomplete consonant and
incomplete vowel rhymes, mixed rhymes. These devices perform very significant functions in
proverbs. Thus, rhyme makes metrical division of proverbs into rhythmical units more precise.
Rhyme and alliteration give a certain melodic effect and also
contribute to semantic singling out of key-words, making them more noticeable and drawing our
attention to them;
3. Among lexical stylistic devices used in English proverbs the most frequent are metaphor,
personification, antonomasia and simile. They are very helpful in creating vivid images and
emphasizing the main ideas of proverbs, making them much more colourful, bright and expressive.
Antithesis is the most spread lexical-syntactic device found in proverbs, it bears comparative and
rhythm-forming functions;
4. As to the syntactic stylistic devices they are of extreme importance for proverbs as the
proverbs should be laconic and syntactically well constructed to be more easily memorized. Thus,
we can often come across ellipsis, parallelism, chiasmus, different types of repetitions: anaphoric,
epiphoric, framing. All these stylistic devices perform both the rhythmic and semantic functions.
They contribute to laconism and brevity of proverbs and make them sound more expressive and
emphatic;
5. As a result of morphological analysis of proverbs I may conclude that all parts of speech
are present in them: notional and functional. Some proverbs contain only notional parts of speech,
for instance, noun, verb, adjective, but such proverbs are very rare. Among notional parts of speech
the most essential are the noun and the verb. The first performs the functions of the subject, object,
attribute, adverbial modifier and predicative. The verb is as frequent as the noun and is represented
in its two subclasses: finites and non-finites. It has been observed that in proverbs the substantival
functions of the verb expressed in its non-finite forms become even more essential than its syntactic
function of predicate. Thus, the verbids: the infinitive, the gerund, the present and the past
participles are widely used in proverbs where they serve as the subject, object, adverbial modifier,
attribute or predicative. The finites are still represented in all their grammatical categories: time,
mood, aspect, voice, person and number. Most of proverbs are expressed in the indicative mood,
present simple tense. Aspectual forms of continuous and perfect are quite limited and are not
characteristic of the majority of proverbs; The adjective and the adverb are abundant in proverbs,
though not so numerous as the noun and the verb. Their degrees of comparison are rather formed by
means of suffixes to contribute to the brevity of proverbs. The pronouns are used as noun substitutes
and most of all these are he, it, who, that, having generalizing meaning. Numerals are rather rare
and especially the ordinals;
6. The English proverbs have quite a rich variety of syntactic constructions. Among
communicative types of sentences declarative and declarative-imperative are the most typical of
proverbs, due to the fact that in such forms of statement the common generally accepted truth is
expressed or advice is given, and that is the aim of proverbs;
7. Proverbs are subdivided into simple, both expanded and unexpanded, and
composite sentences. They can be also affirmative or negative. The negation is expressed in various
ways: not with auxiliary or modal verbs, not preceded by a notional verb, pronouns no, nothing,
none, nobody and adverb never. The most frequent are negations formed by not with auxiliary or
modal verbs and pronoun never;
8. The composite proverbs fall into the asyndetic and the syndetic. They are divided into
the compound and the complex sentences. In most of the cases the compound sentences are linked
by the conjunction and, and less often by but. The complex sentences as a rule have only one
subordinate clause and may contain various conjunctions, such as while, when, till, until, before,
if, as, and also pronouns who and that. Very often these pronouns are accompanied by the pronoun
he where they perform generalizing functions;
10. Proverbs are frequently used in literary works. They may be taken in
their initial form, just quoted, or may be transformed, or innovated, i.e. undergo
certain changes. These changes are of three types: lexical, morphological and
syntactical. All these changes may occur simultaneously to fit the context; the
process is similar to the transformation of all phraseological units;
11. Having studied and summarized the most popular classifications of methods and techniques
of translation of phraseological units, I distinguished the following methods, by means of which
English proverbs can be translated into the Russian language: absolute equivalent, relative
equivalent, analogue, antonymic translation and calque or loan translation. While translating
English proverbs the most frequent are relative equivalent and analogue, whereas absolute
equivalent, calque and antonymic translation are less widely spread. When proverbs are a part of
context, but their form and arrangement remain unchanged, they are as a rule translated by means of
analogue, but when their lexical, morphological or syntactical arrangement is changed they are
usually translated word for word, i.e. by calque or loan translation.
On the whole proverbs play an important role in our life. They give us advice, instruct us,
help to overcome difficulties and teach us how to live. Proverbs represent the history, culture and
traditions of the nation, they are embodiment of folk wisdom.
Proverbs enrich our vocabulary; speech becomes more laconic, vivid, colourful, emphatic,
emotional, expressive and full of sense. They may be used as euphemisms or to produce a certain
comic effect. But we should be cautious while using the proverbs, because their misuse may lead to
absurdity and misunderstanding.
An important role play the biblical proverbs, which are found in all parts of the Bible, they
have certain purely lexical and stylistic features, which must always be taken into account in order to
distinguish them from ordinary sentences. Biblical proverbs are brief statements showing in
condensed form the accumulated life experience of the community and serving as conventional
practical symbols for abstract ideas. They are usually didactic and image bearing.
The main feature that distinguishes biblical proverbs from ordinary utterances is their semantic
aspect. Their literal meaning is suppressed by what may be termed their transferred meaning, it is
when one meaning (literal) is the form for another meaning (transferred), which contains the idea.

Biblical proverbs are often modified in speech. The long forms of biblical proverbs do not
survive in the English language, they are undergoing a process of creative adaptation and
modification. So, the new variants of biblical proverbs appear. Their main features are length and
repetition. Contraction, substitution and expansion are the most common types of variation of biblical
proverbs. Biblical proverbs have synonyms in speech and most of them have different origins.
Biblical proverbs exhibit most of the stylistic devices: lexical stylistic devices -hyperbole, epithet;
syntactical stylistic devices - inversion, repetition, parallelism; lexico-syntactical stylistic devices -
simile; and graphical - italics and phonetic stylistic means -alliteration, meter, rhyme.
The experiment proved that only the knowledge of biblical proverbs can lead to their usage in a
proper context.

Notes

1. Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary of Current English, Hornby A.S. Oxford 1987
2, Английская фразеология . A.V.Koonin, M 1970
3.Encyclopedia Britarmica, vol. 26, Chicago, 1991.
4.Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs, Oxford 1974.
5.American Heritage Dictionary, New-York, 1994
6.Webster Dictionary, Massachusets, 1983
7.The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs, Oxford 1982
8.Encyclopedia Americana, Connecticut, 1994
9.Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary of Current English, Hornby A.S. Oxford 1987
10.Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs, Oxford 1974
11.Словарь справочник лингвистических терминов,Розенталь ,Москва 1976
12.Словарь лингвистических терминов, Ахманова ,Москва 1966
13.The Random House Dictionary, Bombay, 1972
14.The Concise English Dictionary, Bucuresti, 1981
15..Longman Dictionary of English Language and Culture, Harlow, 1992
16.The Penguin English Dictionary, G.N.Garmonsway, J.Simpson, 1987.
17.New Webster's Dictionary of the English Language, Delhi, 1989
18.Cambridge International Dictionary of English, Cambridge 1985
19.Oxford Advanced Learner's Encyclopedic Dictionary, Oxford 1994
20.Britannica World Language Edition of Funk & Wagnalls New Practical Standard Dictionary,
New - York 1956
21.Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of English Language New - York 1989
22.Modern English. A Glossary of Literature and Language. A.Lazarus , A.Mac Leish , H.Wendel
Smith, New-York 1971
23.English Proverbs and Sayings. S.Kuskovskaia.Minsk, 1987
24.Fifty English Proverbs and how to use them.I.M.Deeva, L.I970
25.Stylistics .I.R. Galperin, M.I971
26.Английская фразеология . A.V.Koonin, M 1970
27.Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English. - M., 1992, pp.66,67.
28 Collier's Encyclopedia. - New York, 1993,115.
29.Ibidem, 116,117.
30. Ibidem, 136, 137.
31 Williams P. America's Religions. - New York, 1995, 77.
32. Collier's Encyclopedia. - New York, 1993,11.9
33.Ibidem, 140,141.
34. Seiler. German Proverbs. - Munhen, 1992, 196.
35. Кунин А. Англо-русский фразеологический словарь. - M, 1984, 218.
36. Кунин А. Англо-русский фразеологический словарь.-М., 1984, 101.
37. Brunvand J. The Study of the American Folklore. -New York, 1986, 83
38. Melenciuc D. Seminars in Modern English Stylistics. - Chisinau, 2001, 182.
27. Stănciulescu C. "Dicţionar de proverbe Italian-român", Bucureşti 1982
28.Most of the examples are taken from “ Diccionario de Proverbios” (Espaňiol-rumano-ruso-
inglés-portugués-francés-italiano-latino), by I. Dumbr[veanu, L.Plăcintă, E.Ciornîi, L.Şevţov. Union
Fenosa, Chişinău, Red Centru.
29. Stănciulescu C. "Dicţionar de proverbe Italian-român", Bucureşti 1982
30. Виноградов В.В. «Основные понятия русской фразеологии как лингвистической
дисциплины. Избранные труды», М. 1977
31. Амосова Р.П. «Основы английской фразеологии» Л. 1963
32. Кунин А.В. «Английская фразеология» М. 1970
33. Амосова Р.П. «Основы английской фразеологии» Л. 1963
34.Melenciuc D. A Reader in English Lexicology, MSU, 2005.
35.Ibidem.
36. Ibidem.
37. Melenciuc D. A Reader in English Stylistics, MSU, 2005.
38.ibidem, pp.165-172.
39.Ibidem, pp. 168-172.
40. Ibidem, pp. 114-125, 199-201.

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