PROVERBS MISQUOTED

New Zealand Tablet, 1 June 1911, Page 1030

PROVERBS MISQUOTED

It is a peculiar faculty of. human memory to misquote proverbs and poetry, and almost invariably to place the credit where it does not belong. Nine men out of ten think that ‘ The Lord tempers the wind to the shorn Jamb ’ is from the Bible, whereas Laurence Sterne is the author. ‘ Pouring oil upon the troubled waters ’ is also ascribed to the sacred volume, whereas it is not there; in fact, no one knows its origin. Again, we hear the people say: ‘ The proof of the pudding is in chewing the string.’ This is arrant nonsense, as the proverb says: ‘ The proof of the pudding is in the eating thereof, and not in chewing the string.’ Nothing is more common than to hear: ‘A man convinced against his will Is of .the same opinion still.’ This is an impossible condition of the mind, for no one can be convinced of an opinion and at the same time hold an opposite one. What Butler wrote was eminently sensible : He that complies against his will Is of his own opinion still,’ We also hear that ‘A miss is as good as a mile,’ which is not as sensible or as forcible as the true-proverb: A miss of an inch is as good as a, mile.’