In an old edition of the magazine, The Island, T.K. Pratt took the time to trace which proverbs Islanders were still using in the years 1979-1981. If you trace the origin of these proverbs, as well as their meanings, they can tell you a lot about the ideals and wisdom of the people who use them. Here is a list of proverbs that Islanders use, as well as their meanings and true origins.
It’s easy to pass a poor man’s door.
Praise without profit puts little in the pocket. – This saying actually dates back to England in 1666. By 1728, Alexander Pope used another version of the saying “Praise is not pudding” in his verse: “Truth with gold she weighs/And solid pudding against empty praise.”
He leaves his fiddle at the gate. – This proverb is found in a 200-year-old dialect book from England, which explains that the phrase is “said of a person who is merry and cheerful abroad, but surly and ill-tempered in his family”.
Far-away cows have long horns. – Things distant are often exaggerated. This dates back to Scottish “proverb hunter” James Kelly, who wrote in 1721, “one Thing is said and another Thing understood and applied”.
To have to plant or cut sets – to be forced to choose
To put the pigs through it – “to spoil something”. This phrase was used by Sir Walter Scott.
The sun is splitting the trees. – It is very hot.
Not many flies around today. – It is very cold.
He’s not a hundred. – He’s mentally deficient.
To take the clucking out – to quiet someone
The uniqueness of the Islanders also comes from their penchant for similes, which follow the rule: as + adjective + as + noun. For ex: as lazy as a pet pig, as lucky as a pet crow, as stunned as an owl, as smart as a bee, as tight as the tail on a cat, as straight as a sleigh track on the Western Road, he lies faster than a horse can gallop.
The similes can also contain proper names, such as “as crazy as Tom Clarke’s dog” and they can make as little sense as “as mean as turkey turd tea”.
Pratt explains that while conducting research with the locals, it was hard to know whether their sayings were new, coined by themselves or traditional ones. Some are very modern, such as “ears like a Volkswagen with the doors open”.
Some proverbs make their way into conversation because of how expressive they are. Examples include: every hitch and turn, long and ever ago, full earnest and half fun, or greetings like “How’s your belly where the pig bit you?” or answering the nosy question of “What is it?” with “It’s a nooden-nadden for a goose’s bridle”.
But no matter how varied the sayings are, they all seem to come from the routines of rural life and farming. These include: Crooked furrows grow straight grain (a bad upbringing can be overcome), The bottom has fallen out of the basket (the end has come). boiled with axehandles (hot), it’s down cellar behind the axe (a flippant reply), he would drink out of a sheep track (he is an alcoholic) and the devil is rolling his oats (it is thundering outside).
And sometimes, the Islanders change old proverbs to make them more suitable to island life. What once was not to amount to a hill of beans is changed to not to amount to a row of postholes, which shows the importance of fencing. You’ll soon see the rabbit (you are almost done) comes from the fact that when cutting a hayfield, a rabbit has to retreat to the centre until it has no cover and then must flee.
Their saying “from away” to describe anyone who doesn’t come from the island signifies a sense of distrust for anyone not from their area. But at the same time, their proverbs stress the importance of conforming to community norms, with descriptions of people like as crazy as a bag of hammers, as queer as Tom Peck’s bulldog, as queer as crows, a few bales short of a load, there’s one room in his attic not plastered and he doesn’t have both oars in the water.
Their sayings also demonstrate the courage of the islanders in regard to poverty, such as he’s too poor to buy paint and too proud to use whitewash and he hasn’t got a pot to pee in or a window to throw it out of. They also are brave about the weather. Ex. It’s a poor day to set a hen (there is a blizzard). They are also quick to say when people are getting too full of themselves: there’s a pound of paint on the jaws of her, dressed up like a Protestant priest, if your brass were gold you’d be a millionaire.
It is interesting to note that throughout history, the popularity of proverbs has changed. In the Elizabethan age, they were a very well-known form of expression. Shakespeare included many puns and sayings in his works, replying on the fact that the crowd would recognize them.
But in the 18th century, you were seen to be too “common” if you used proverbs. In 1741, Lord Chesterfield wrote to his son, saying the he should beware of using phrases such as “what is one man’s meat is another man’s poison” or else “everybody would be persuaded that you had never kept company with anybody above footmen and housemaids.” Because of this stance, many old proverbs were lost.
Even at the time of writing his article, Pratt suggested that proverbs among the locals were declining as “the use of exaggerated propriety are once more gaining ground”. However, we can assume that in the era of the King Family, these amusing quips and sayings were ripe in popularity.
Source: The Island Magazine, Number 10
