Phraseology and Culture in English

5. New England proverbs in the modern age 
While there exist numerous primarily popular collections of proverbs, pro-
verbial expressions, and idioms from different states or regions of the Uni-
ted States, such compilations are not very plentiful for New England. Three 
notable exceptions are Arthur H. Cole’s The Charming Idioms of New Eng-
land (1960), Robert Hendrickson’s Yankee Talk. A Dictionary of New Eng-
land Expressions (1996), and my own As Strong as a Moose: New England 
Expressions (1997). But while they contain many colorful expressions that 
illustrate Yankee humor and wit, they have purposely excluded bona fide
proverbs. In fact, there is presently but one small volume available that has 
assembled about five hundred proverbs from this region, namely my Yan-
kee Wisdom: New England Proverbs (1989b). 
Having lived and taught at the University of Vermont for more than 
thirty years, I have had ample opportunity to collect these proverbs from 
oral and written sources. Many were recorded during years of listening to 
verbal communication of New Englanders. Others were found in books, 
almanacs, and folklore journals on New England in general or on specific 
states of the Northeast. Another major source for the proverbs were the liter-
ary works of such New England authors as Edward Taylor, Cotton Mather, 
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry Wadsworth Long-
fellow, John Greenleaf Whittier, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Harriet Beecher 

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Wolfgang Mieder 
Stowe, John Godfrey Saxe, David Henry Thoreau, James Russell Lowell, 
Herman Melville, Emily Dickinson, Louisa May Alcott, Rowland Evans 
Robinson, Mark Twain, Dorothy Canfield Fisher, and Walter Hard. These 
authors all used proverbs in their prose and poetry to mirror the regional 
folk language and wisdom of New England (see Mieder and Bryan 1996). 
Their literary works certainly provide a clue to ascertain which proverbs 
were in use by the Yankees of New England during their day. 
New England encompasses so many different historical, cultural, geo-
graphical, and sociological aspects that it is difficult at times to understand 
how this relatively small region of the Northeast of the United States can be 
looked at as having any unity at all. Considered individually, the six states 
of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and 
Vermont have their own distinctive characteristics. The Maine fisherman, 
for example, is certainly different from the Vermont farmer; the Bostonian 
executive has different concerns from the Portuguese immigrant to Rhode 
Island; and the liberal values of residents of Connecticut suburbs seem to 
clash with the values of the more conservative people of New Hampshire, 
whose state slogan is the proverb Live free or die. The populations of Boston, 
Providence, and other large cities with universities, cultural centers, and 
industries appear to conflict with those who live in the quaint villages, farm-
lands, and woods of the more rural states. In addition, New Englanders have 
always expressed a deep-rooted identity with their individual states, and one 
wonders how these Yankees can actually be brought under one proverbial hat. 
But there is a definite thread that ties these distinct small states together 
into the so-called New England region. Without doubt, it is the common 
political history they share as the cradle of the United States. After all, it 
was on the Massachusetts shore that the Pilgrims settled, and it was there 
that they established the life-style based on Puritan ethics that prevails to 
this day. Common religious beliefs, high moral principles, and austere exis-
tences gave rise to a common worldview among New Englanders, empha-
sizing work, independence, thriftiness, ingenuity, ruggedness, tenacity, sim-
plicity, taciturnity, and a particularly dry sense of humor. A common ad-
herence to these traditional New England virtues constitutes the Yankee 
mind-set, and proverbs current in this region reflect, at least in part, com-
monly held attitudes and mores. 
Of course, Yankees employ many proverbs that are known and used 
throughout the United States and in other parts of the English-speaking 
world. They will yield little as regards a distinct Yankee mentality. But 
there are, of course, also proverbs that are indigenous to New England, as 

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