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Puzzling Proverbs

from dusty's link:

A fool may ask more questions in an hour than a wise man can answer in seven years.

(which i sometimes feel applies rather well on this MB! ;) )
 
rynner said:
A fool may ask more questions in an hour than a wise man can answer in seven years.
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Sorry, I haven't got much time, but what do you mean?
 
Surely a truly wise man would just look up the answers on Wikipedia, answering them in much the same scattershot rate as the fool asking them? Like, duh!
 
evilsprout said:
Surely a truly wise man would just look up the answers on Wikipedia, answering them in much the same scattershot rate as the fool asking them? Like, duh!
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But remember the modern saying:

Any idiot with an internet connection can update Wiki.

So the wise man wouldn't touch Wiki with the end of someone else's...
 
rynner said:
from dusty's link:

A fool may ask more questions in an hour than a wise man can answer in seven years.

(which i sometimes feel applies rather well on this MB! ;) )
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I'm not sure I like that comment. Seems a bit harsh and discouraging to future posters. I'm open to the poss that I'm being oversensitive and misinterpreting, but calling posters fools jars me.
 
Right, that's the grant application sorted:

Piscine Velocipedal Employment Patterns Across Contemporary Europe

"A detailed survey to be determined by lavish application of nasal passages to saddles. Sample size to be decided by when I get bored or exhausted. Countries to be visited: oh, Holland mainly, I suppose.*"

*Preliminary surveys suggest that every living thing in the Netherlands is on a bicycle and every dead thing there is on the road with an elegant single tread-mark through its axis.

:blissed:
 
One I have heard for many years is, " I see, said the blind man, as he picked up his hammer and saw."
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at home my mother always says `"I see", said the blind man, "a hole in the wall" "You liar", said the dumb man, "You can't see at all"`

she has a million of these
 
I remember using the expression "Six of one and half-a-dozen of the other" within earshot of an over-literal colleague. She looked puzzled for a moment, as if performing mathematical gymnastics, and then said "But that's the same thing!".

Yes, I said, I hadn't thought of that.
 
:lol: When my kids were excitedly running off to play on a trampoline at a theme park, I called after them, 'Just don't come running to me with a broken leg!'

A man nearby turned to his missus and said, did you hear that, how stupid! How could they run with a broken leg...
 
All proverbs, even apparently obscure foreign ones, can be understood with a minute's thought. s'not rocket science. ;)
 
I always carry some loose change - a dozen fickles and a gross of fuckles.
 
escargot1 said:
All proverbs, even apparently obscure foreign ones, can be understood with a minute's thought. s'not rocket science. ;)
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This entire thread must just irritate you then. Wonder why you bother.
 
gncxx said:
Many a mickle makes a muckle.
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Actually, that was apparently made up for a Fine Fare commercial. Nobody actually said it before then.
 
How would you know whether I was irritated? You got a crystal ball?
 
Yeah, never mind 'cos there's many a slip twixt cup and lip.

EDIT -

stuneville said:
Actually, that was apparently made up for a Fine Fare commercial. Nobody actually said it before then.
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Not according to the Compact Oxford English Dictionary!

— PHRASES many a little makes a mickle (also many a mickle makes a muckle) many small amounts accumulate to make a large amount.

— ORIGIN Old English.

— USAGE The forms mickle and muckle are merely variants of the same (now dialect) word meaning ‘a large amount’. However, the alternative form of the proverb (originally a misquotation) has led to a misunderstanding that mickle means ‘a small amount’.
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Furthermore, there's no use thatching an empty barn.
That's one of my favourites. 8)
 
Isn't there some test psychiatrists do along these lines? I can't remember what it's for, but I seem to recall that not understanding proverbs can point to some kind of mental illness or condition. :?
Perhaps I'm thinking of the android test in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. :?
 
beakboo said:
Isn't there some test psychiatrists do along these lines? I can't remember what it's for, but I seem to recall that not understanding proverbs can point to some kind of mental illness or condition. :?
Perhaps I'm thinking of the android test in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. :?
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there's no use thatching an empty barn
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:?

OMG! I'm an android! :shock:
 
A phrase:
"Now, you've put me on a horse!"
Meaning:
You've got my interest or you've got me all keen for something.

'Smarvellous!
 
Sage advice from the cab of a Dutch HGV

"Never drive faster than your Angel can fly"
 
Niall114 said:
Sage advice from the cab of a Dutch HGV

"Never drive faster than your Angel can fly"
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i'd never heard that phrase until a few days ago, when i saw it on a car sticker.

and now it turns up here... spooky!
 
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