The Russian language has many proverbs for different occasions: about love and friendship, evil and good, courage and cowardice, about loyalty and betrayal ... A special place in this series is played by proverbs about lies. What is the history of the origin of these sayings?
What are proverbs?
A proverb is a short aphorism that came "from the people." As a rule, this or that life situation is played out in it, a specific phenomenon, a human vice, is ridiculed. Folk sayings are both in prose, and rhyming among themselves in two parts.
Proverbs have been counting since ancient times. The first collections of Russian folk sayings are dated to the twelfth century, but in ancient Egypt, for example, they generally appeared even before our era! Ancient Russian chronicles and works that have survived to our days, for example, "The Word about Igor's Regiment", are also a storehouse of wise aphorisms.
Later proverbs appeared thanks to classical Russian works and authors - Pushkin, Krylov and Griboedov and others contributed a lot to this. We may not even know that this or that popular phrase is repelled by an equally famous fable or fairy tale. The famous proverbial collector was Vladimir Ivanovich Dahl, who called them the "code of folk wisdom."
How is a proverb different from a saying?
Often people confuse proverbs and sayings. These genres are very similar, but nevertheless there are differences between them. Both of them relate to folklore (that is, folklore), but the proverb has an instructive meaning, a mandate, but not in the saying. “You can’t even take a fish out of a pond without labor” - this is a proverb, it teaches you not to be lazy. “Seven Fridays of the Week” is a saying; there is no instruction in it. Also, sayings do not rhyme.
The meaning of proverbs about lies and truth
As already mentioned, sayings about lies are one of the most widespread in our culture. Of course, it is impossible to tell the story and the true meaning of all the existing proverbs about lies - there are too many of them. But some examples are quite real. After all, often we don’t even know the essence of the phrase we are talking about!
The meaning of this proverb can be explained with the help of another: "Everything secret always becomes apparent."
The truth may not be too pleasant, and then you don’t want to know it, and the reaction to it can be up to aggressive.
Usually this phrase is said when they do not believe a person, or when he pronounces a clear lie, a tale.
- Not the rank is respected, but a man in his truth.
This means that even if you are rich, but constantly telling lies, they will treat you worse than a poor but honest person.
- Barbara is my aunt, but really a sister.
Sincerity is valued above any relationship.
- Everyone seeks truth, but not everyone creates it.
Everyone wants to be honest with him, but not everyone has this quality.
- Once you have lied to someone who believes you.
This means that if you have been caught lying at least once, there will no longer be any trust in you or it will be less.
- Better is the bitter truth than the sweet lie.
The truth is unpleasant, it is difficult to endure, but even this is better than being in ignorance and staying with the nose.
- Do not like, do not listen, and do not bother to lie.
If you doubt a person’s words, but his wrong or intentional lie has not been proved, you should not say anything - this may turn against you.
- The mouth of the baby speaks truth.
Children are the purest creatures, as a rule, they are naive and unsophisticated, do not know how to lie, while adults often use lies to achieve any of their selfish goals.
- True, it does not burn in fire and does not sink in water.
No matter how much one wants to deceive a person and hide from him the true state of things, the truth will still come out sooner or later.
English proverbs about lies
Not only Russian folklore is rich in folk wisdom. Proverbs about lies, of course, exist in other languages. Since the most common is English, here are some sayings from Britain (of course, in translation). They are also quite interesting.
- There is no escape from human untruth.
- Liars must have a good memory.
- A liar is not believed when he is telling the truth.
- Truth and murder will go free.
- Not the whole truth is spoken.
- Lies give birth to lies.
- The truth is weirder than fiction.
Thus, any language is rich in its culture. It is only necessary to know the true meaning of the words used and not to “shake the air in vain”. Then these folk phenomena will live longer!