Proverbs

[Angus Grieve-Smith]

On 11/13/2012 12:51 PM, Riddle, Elizabeth wrote:
> Following up the points about story telling, I'm thinking of times when English speakers say things like "Remember the boy who cried 'wolf'" as an admonishment to a child.  This utterance is not a proverb in and of itself, has normal sentence structure, and is not really metaphorical in the sense that saying "that's sour grapes" might be, but seems to serve a similar communicative purpose to that of a proverb in such a situation.  I'm wondering if such references regularly occur in the discourse of various native North American languages.

     It's not just explicit allusions like that, but implicit quotations 
like "Once more into the breach, my friends!" or in French, "revenons à 
ces moutons..."

     At this point I have to mention the Star Trek episode "Darmok," 
which imagined a culture that communicated entirely in those kinds of 
allusions to old stories:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darmok

     The "Universal Translator" technology was unable to cope with it, 
passing the allusions on literally without supplying either the stories 
themselves or any interpretation as to their relevance.

-- 
				-Angus B. Grieve-Smith
				grvsmth at panix.com