Anti-proverb


An anti-proverb or a perverb is the transformation of a standard proverb for humorous effect. Paremiologist Wolfgang Mieder defines them as "parodied, twisted, or fractured proverbs that reveal humorous or satirical speech play with traditional proverbial wisdom". Anti-proverbs are ancient, Aristophanes having used one in his play Peace, substituting κώẟων "bell" for κύων "bitch, female dog", twisting the standard and familiar "The hasty bitch gives birth to blind" to "The hasty bellfinch gives birth to blind".
Anti-proverbs have also been defined as "an allusive distortion, parody, misapplication, or unexpected contextualization of a recognized proverb, usually for comic or satiric effect". To have full effect, an anti-proverb must be based on a known proverb. For example, "If at first you don't succeed, quit" is only funny if the hearer knows the standard proverb "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again". Anti-proverbs are used commonly in advertising, such as "Put your burger where your mouth is" from the Red Robin restaurant chain. Anti-proverbs are also common on T-shirts, such as "Taste makes waist" and "If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you".
Standard proverbs are essentially defined phrases, well known to many people, as e. g. Don't bite the hand that feeds you. When this sequence is deliberately slightly changed it becomes an anti-proverb. The relationship between anti-proverbs and proverbs, and a study of how much a proverb can be changed before the resulting anti-proverb is no longer seen as proverbial, are still open topics for research.

Classification

There have been various attempts at classifying different types of anti-proverbs, based on structure and semantics, including by Mieder, Litovkina, and Valdeva. What follows is somewhat synthetic of these.

Classification on formal criteria

  • Association: The similarity to the original sequence is strong enough to identify it, but there is no further connection: The early worm gets picked first.
  1. Original phrase: The early bird gets the worm.
  • Change of homonyms: A word which has several meanings is interpreted in a new way: Where there's a will, there's a lawsuit.
  1. Original phrase: Where there's a will , there's a way .
  2. Contrast this with the changed homonym phrase, which implies a highly contentious legal document that determines the distribution of an individual's possessions to other persons and groups upon the individual's death.
  • Combination: Two sequences are combined: One brain washes the other.
  1. Original phrases: One hand washes the other. and One brain watches the other.
  1. Original phrase: A mind is a terrible thing to waste, which means one of several things:
  2. # "One should not become addicted to bad habits like drugs or losing sleep that destroy the ability to think in reasonable ways."
  3. # "One should pursue an academic or intellectual job if they are smart.".
  4. Contrast this with the permuted phrase, which means "One should not waste their time thinking about their body's waist and its shape or diameter".
  • Abridgement: The sequence is cut and thus changed completely: All's well that ends.
  1. Original phrase: All's well that ends well, meaning "Everything that ends with an okay result will also have the sequence of steps to achieve that end result be okay".
  2. Contrast this with the abridged phrase, which means "Everything that ends is okay".
  • Substitution: Parts of the sequence are replaced: Absence makes the heart go wander.
  1. Original phrase: Absence makes the heart grow fonder.
  2. Contrast this with the substituted phrase, which means "The person who has left causes the heart of the person who has stayed to try to find a new third person to enjoy"
  • Supplementation: A sentence with a contrasting meaning is added to the original sequence: A man's home is his castle – let him clean it.
  1. Original phrase: A man's home is his castle, meaning the man is a king, and as such, he should not have to do lowly peasant-class duties such as cleaning, cooking, and other chores.
  • Syntactic change: The semantic structure of the sentence changes while the sequence of words stays the same: Men think: "God governs." – A good man will think of himself: after, all the others.
  1. Original phrase: A good man will think of himself after all others.
  2. Contrast this with the syntactically-changed phrase, which means "A good man will think of himself , and after he does so, he will then think of all the other people."

    Classification on content criteria

  • Mitigation: The meaning seems kept, but is qualified by the supplement: Everything has an end, but a sausage has two.
  • Apology: The original sequence is defended against attacks: German example, translated: Art comes from 'able', not from 'will', or we'd better call it wirt.
  • Conservation: The meaning is similar, with and without the supplement: There is no such thing as a free lunch, but there is always free cheese in a mousetrap.
  • Break of metaphor: Metaphors are interpreted literally: Duty is calling? We call back.
  • Neogenesis: The meaning of the new sentence is completely independent of the original one: An onion a day keeps everybody away.

    Types of humorous effects

  • Bisociation: This is a technical term coined by Arthur Koestler. He says that a funny text is situated in two different semantic levels. In the beginning, the hearer or reader is aware of only one of them. The sudden and unexpected punch line is what makes this humorous. For example: I only want your best – your money.
  • Destruction: This is where the saying is completely altered and has an opposite meaning, such as: Jesus may love you – but will he respect you in the morning?
  • Fictional catastrophe: Catastrophes which are only made up or solved in one's mind might be humorous, as can be seen in the quotation: The light at the end of the tunnel is only muzzle flash.

    History

Anti-proverbs have been used and recognized for a long time. The Greek musician Stratonicus of Athens used an anti-proverb to mock a cithara-singer who had been nicknamed "Ox". He twisted the standard Greek proverb "The ass hears the lyre", replacing the first word to produce "The Ox hears the lyre."
However, the term "anti-proverb" was not coined until 1982 by Wolfgang Mieder. The term became more established with the publication of Twisted Wisdom: Modern Anti-Proverbs by Wolfgang Mieder and Anna T. Litovkina.
They were one of the many experimental styles explored by the French literary movement Oulipo. The term perverb is attributed to Maxine Groffsky. The concept was popularised by Oulipo collaborator Harry Mathews in his Selected Declarations of Dependence.
Anti-proverbs have been alternatively named "postproverbials" by Aderemi Raji-Oyelade,. This term has been adopted by some African proverb scholars, seen in a large collection of articles about antiproverbs/postproverbials in the journal Matatu 51,2, edited by Aderemi Raji-Oyelade and Olayinka Oyeleye.

In literature

Some authors have bent and twisted proverbs, creating anti-proverbs, for a variety of literary effects. For example, in the Harry Potter novels, J. K. Rowling reshapes a standard English proverb into "It's no good crying over spilt potion" and Professor Dumbledore advises Harry not to "count owls before they are delivered".
From Nigeria, Adeyemi shows the use of both proverbs and anti-proverbs in Rérẹ́ Rún by Okediji.
Adeyemi believes that they add humor, color and beauty to his writing. But on a political plane, he believes "Anti-proverbs were also used to stimulate critical consciousness in the readers to fight for their rights but with wisdom. The conclusion of the paper was that the conscious manipulation of the so-called fixed proverbs could generate new proverbs, encourage creativity in the writers and expose hidden meanings of proverbs."
In a slightly different use of reshaping proverbs, in the Aubrey–Maturin series of historical naval novels by Patrick O'Brian, Capt. Jack Aubrey humorously mangles and mis-splices proverbs, such as "Never count the bear's skin before it is hatched" and "There's a good deal to be said for making hay while the iron is hot."
An earlier fictional splicer of proverb is a character found in a novel by Beatrice Grimshaw, producing such combinations as "Make hay while the iron is hot" and "They lock the stable door when the milk is spilt".
Part of G. K. Chesterton’s reputation as the "Prince of Paradoxes" rested on his ability to turn proverbs and clichés on their heads. One example of this facility occurs in his What’s Wrong with the World: Arguing that the education of children is better left to their mothers than to professional educators, he ends his argument with, "... f a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly." Commenting on this, Dale Ahlquist in the Society of Gilbert Keith Chesterton blog, argues that there is considerable good sense in this paradoxical anti-proverb. He cites Chesterton’s own remark that "Paradox has been defined as 'Truth standing on her head to get attention'", and notes that Chesterton in the same passage explicitly concedes that there are things, like astronomy, that need to be done very well; whereas when it comes to writing love letters or blowing one’s nose, Chesterton argues that, "These things we want a man to do for himself, even if he does them badly."