Phraseology and Culture in English

2. American proverbs and worldview 
The United States are a country of immigrants, and while the English lan-
guage connects various ethnic and social groups linguistically, there is a 
plethora of native languages used in this giant land with Spanish gaining 
ever greater prominence. All of the people who came to America brought 
their proverbs with them, and it is thus difficult to speak of “American” 
proverbs as such, especially since a large number of those proverbs current 
in the United States go back to English sources. There are also proverbs 
from antiquity, various religions, and the Middle Ages that had entered Eng-
lish and other languages through loan translations for centuries before the 
new settlers carried them across the ocean. Proverbs like Big fish eat little 
fish; Man does not live by bread alone (Deuteronomy 8:3; Matthew 4:4), or 

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Yankee wisdom: American proverbs and the worldview of New England
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Strike while the iron is hot are known throughout most European languages 
(Paczolay 1997), and their currency is widespread in American communi-
cation as well. There are, of course, also typically English proverbs, as for 
example The early bird catches the worm; Make hay while the sun shines;
A penny saved is a penny earned, and A stitch in time saves nine. And to be 
sure, America has its very own proverbs as well: Paddle your own canoe
(expressing the spirit of independence), One picture is worth a thousand 
words (emphasis on the visual, see Mieder 1993: 135–151), What is good 
for General Motors, is good for America (big business), Life begins at forty
(youthfulness), Garbage in, garbage out (world of computers), and even 
the scatological Shit happens (fate). In other words, proverbs are still being 
coined today, while others drop out since they do not fit modern attitudes 
and mores any longer. Proverbs like A woman’s tongue wags like a lamb’s 
tail or Spare the rod and spoil the child have disappeared or are on their 
way out, while such proverbs as A woman without a man is like a fish with-
out a bicycle or There is no free lunch are steadily gaining in currency. 
Regarding the proverbs of certain ethnic and social groups, the striking 
lack of proverbs among Native Americans remains a conundrum. While 
thousands of proverbs have been gathered for most peoples, the recorded 
proverbs of the indigenous peoples of the American continent barely reach 
a few hundred texts, among them The road is still open, but it will close
(referring to behavioral etiquette) and A deer, though toothless, may ac-
complish something (don’t judge by appearances) (Mieder 1989a: 99–110). 
In comparison, the African American culture is especially rich in proverbs, 
including the wisdom necessary to survive slavery: De proudness un a man 
don’t count w’en his head’s cold and Dem w’at eats kin say grace. But 
there are also more modern proverbs which have their origin among the 
Black population and which have entered general American folk speech: 
What goes around comes around and, of course, the truly liberating and 
quintessential American proverb Different strokes for different folks from 
the 1950s (Daniel 1973; Mieder 1989a: 111–128). 
As expected, the large Spanish speaking population is having an ever 
greater influence on proverbs throughout the United States. With the Span-
ish language also gaining steadily in importance, many proverbs are in fact 
current in Spanish, among them El que nace para maceta del corredor na