The
Proverbial
Islander
by T.K. Pratt
" m he genius, wit, and spirit of a nation," says Bacon, "are discovered in its
proverbs." Many later commentators
have agreed. Proverbs are a clue to
what people believe, a natural
outgrowth of their ideals of life. They
are the learning of those not usually
though learned; they are the wisdom of
the folk. Few of us are aware, until we
begin to count, just how many proverbs
are sprinkled as the salt of everyday
speech.
In her "Proverbs and How to Collect
Them," a pamphlet put out by the
American Dialect Society, Margaret M.
Bryant writes that "rural or secluded
districts are especially rich in proverbial
lore, lore often peculiar to them." This
article attempts to mine the lore of
Prince Edward Island proverbs, as
found in such nuggets as It's easy to
pass a poor man's door.
It would be possible, in theory, to
gather both the proverbs that seem
peculiar to this province and the ones
that Islanders select from the large stock
of famous old favorites, like Birds of a
feather flock together. This gathering
would then be a collection of all the proverbs that Islanders use, local and nonlocal. It would be a powerful probe into
the Island psyche, since we could then
ask "Why these and not others?" But
the difficulty of ever completing such a
collection is enormous, The aim here is
more modest. Except where noted, only proverbs that I have never seen
recorded anywhere else are cited in this
analysis. They have been collected from
the living speech of Islanders during the
years 1979-1981 by myself and my
assistants. The list is far from complete;
an example given to me even as I write
this is // nothing splits worse than a
shingle. Written documents have not
been used, but they would certainly be a
profitable line for future investigation.
There is of course a problem in
restricting the study to local sayings. We
may note that in Colombo's Little Book
of Canadian
Proverbs,
Graffiti,
Limericks, nnd Other Vital Matters the
author gives as a distinctive "Canadian"
saying, Praise without profit puts little in
the pocket. But the Oxford Dictionary
of English Proverbs reveals that this old
saw has been known in England since at
least 1666. The poet Alexander Pope
was able to play with another version,
Praise is not pudding, in a poem of
1728: "Truth with gold she weighs/And
solid pudding against empty praise."
Thus one can never be too sure. For an
example closer to home, the editor of
this periodical suggested He leaves his
fiddle at the gate as an Islandism.
However, this proverb is found in a
200-year-old dialect book from Der-
byshire, England, "said of a person who
is merry and cheerful abroad, but surly
and ill-tempered in his family."
Accordingly, what I claim as an
"Island" saying—another preliminary
example is / see shells, I can guess
eggs— may well be known in some form
elsewhere, in New Brunswick, or Nova
Scotia, or Toronto, or Kingston,
Jamaica, or Sydney, Australia, even if it
is not in the standard reference books
listed at the end of this article.
A major difficulty in making a survey
of Island proverbs is that no one has yet
succeeded in a definition of the proverb
species that includes all and only its
members. The best we can do is proceed by example and give a flavour of
the whole. Most people would say that
Far-away cows have long horns sounds
like a proverb, even if they don't know
exactly what it means; one off-Island
record of it has been found. It contains a
kernel of wisdom (Things distant are
often exaggerated') in a figurative husk
("whereby," as the Scots proverb
hunter James Kelly stated in 1721,
"one Thing is said and another Thing
understood and applied"). It is also a
complete sentence. For all these
reasons it might be called a 'model'
proverb.
But proverbs are not always
sentences. Notice to have to plant or cut
sets 'to be forced to choose,' or to put
the pigs through it 'to spoil something'
(so used by Sir Walter Scott). With this
last example we have also begun to lose
some of the model proverb's quality of
wisdom, of being a fundamental truism.
However, we do retain the figure of
speech. Proverbs of this sort might be
termed 'proverbial sayings.' The figures
they employ include exaggeration (The
sun is splitting the trees 'it's very hot');
irony (Not many flies around today 'It's
very cold'); understatement (He's not a
hundred 'He's mentally deficient'); punning (He has a touch of the orchard
about him 'He is a fruit'); euphemism (A
case of the flying axehandles 'diarrhoea') ; metaphor (to take the clucking
out 'to quieten someone, usually a
child'); and, above all, simile (as lazy as
a pet pig).
Proverbial similes are so important to
Prince Edward Island speech that they
almost demand separate treatment. The
standard form is as in the last example:
as + adjective + as + concrete noun.
Many of these make comparisons to
animals: as smart as a bee, as stunned
as an owl, as lucky as a pet crow, as
tight as the tail on a cat, and so on.
Sometimes, as in the last instance, the
As lazy as a pet pig
noun is really a noun phrase; this element can be quite extended, as in as
straight (or as long) as a sleigh track on
the Western Road. The extension of a
proverbial simile can even approach the
model proverb and make a complete
sentence like He lies faster than a horse
can gallop (which dates from the 16th
century). Normally however, the standard form prevails, including sub-types
with proper names (as crazy as Tom
Clarke's dog), sheer absurdities (as
mean as turkey turd tea), and deliberate
shock effects (off like a bride's pants).
People use similes in common conversation frequently, and it is often difficult
for the observer to know whether he or
she is dealing with a freshly minted
coinage or one that is common currency
(and hence proverbial). Surely fairly re
cent would be the example ears like a
Volkswagen with the doors open.
After similes we might finally con
sider some expressions which, thoug
neither very wise nor very figurative
nevertheless force their way into th
proverb circle simply by being e:
pressive and formulaic. These we mig
call 'catch-phrases'; examples incluc
half fun, full earnest, every hitch ai
turn, and long and ever ag<
Sometimes, amusingly, a catch-phrase
is a nonsense greeting (How's your belly
where the pig bit you?), or a nonsense
answer to a nosy question (What is it?
It's a nooden-nadden for a goose's bridle). We are now some distance from
wise old saws like A stitch in time saves
nine. But in truth the line is an unbroken
continuum, which I have divided into
sections merely for convenience. After
catch-phrases, the line blurs into common language. In summary, then, we
may say that all proverbs—whether
Island-born or natives of the world—are
short, formulaic, and popular expressions that stand out in some way from
ordinary speech.
But assuming that an investigator has
collected a goodly stock of things we
agree to call "Island proverbs," what
can be done with it? If proverbs are the
expression of the folk, what sort of folk
would use proverbs of this type? First of
all, it would seem that, despite shopping
centres, creeping suburbia, strip
d e v e l o p m e n t , and consolidated
schools, the Island world-view remains
focussed on the soil. It will be noted that
almost all the examples I have given so
far relate to rural life. Rural sayings run
the gamut from model proverbs like
Crooked furrows grow straight grain ('A
bad upbringing can be overcome') or
The bottom has fallen out of the basket
(The end has come'), to catch-phrases
like boiled with axehandles ('hot') and
It's down cellar behind the axe (a flippant reply). In between come such pro-
10
verbial sayings and similes as He would
drink out of a sheep track ('He is an
alcoholic') and as rotten as dirt, m addition, it is interesting that proverbs
recorded elsewhere in another form are
often given a rural turning here. We
might note / wouldn't take a farm to do
that or / wouldn't be caught dead with
him in a 10-acre field. The devil is rolling his oats ('It's thundering') is reminiscent of many old weather proverbs involving the devil (like the devil is beating
his wife), while He couldn't carry a tune
in a bushel basket is surely a country
clarification of He couldn't carry a tune
if it had handles.
Sometimes a proverb that has the
flavour of the soil even in its general
usage becomes sharper on the Island.
Thus not to amount to a hill of beans
becomes not to amount to a row of
postholes, which stresses the constant
attention to fencing. A single Island
proverb can call up a whole farming
scene. You'll soon see the rabbit (The
job is almost done') derives from the
cutting of a hayfield in which the rabbit
keeps retreating to the centre until finally, with no cover left, it has to bolt. As
homely as a stump fence, while not
confined to the Island, gives us a look at
pioneer farming. A later variation,
perhaps less vivid, is as homely as a
brush fence.
But any world-view or set of mind
has its undesirable features. A rural
mentality fostered in a relatively isolated
part of a relatively raw country would
surely be no exception. This too the
proverbs can show us. The ubiquitous
catch-phrase from away, for example,
crudely lumping the entire planet apart
from the Island into one secondary
category, hints at a widespread
xenophobia, or distrust of strangers.
Similarly a certain pressure not to be too
strange oneself, to conform to rigid
community norms, is evidenced by the
number and vigour of expressions dealing with mental aberration: as crazy as a
bag of hammers; as queer as Tom
Peck's bulldog; as queer as the crows; a
few bales short of a load; There's one
room in his attic not plastered; He
doesn't have both oars in the water;
and so forth. There is also something of
a fixation on excrement. Many of the
similes in this regard are breathtaking:
as drunk as seven barrels of shit; as flat
as piss on a plate; as lucky as a
shithouse rat; as busy as a fart in a mitt;
as busy as a cat covering shit; as good as
a pee-hole in the snow; He knows as
much about that as my arse-hole knows
about soap blowing. Another frequent
concomitant of rural life in the Maritimes
is poverty. Here the attitude displayed
in proverbs is perhaps more adult.
There is humour and courage in such
sayings as He's too poor to buy paint
and too proud to use whitewash or He
hasn 't got a pot to pee in or a window to
throw it out of.
With these last examples, the essential sanity of the Prince Edward Island
outlook reasserts itself. We can see
courage again in the irony with which
bad weather is often treated, as in It's a
poor day to set a hen (for a howling blizzard) . We can see self-confidence in the
squelches for people who get above
themselves: There's a pound of paint on
the jaws of her; dressed up like a Protestant priest; If your brass were gold you'd
be a millionaire; You'll never put air
under that ('You've taken too much to
eat'). We can see good fellowship in the
badinage of hyperbolic catch-phrases: //
you broke off where you cracked, you'd
be a damn short man ('You too break
wind'); "How many were there?" "Why
there were thousands from Tyne Valley
alone" (a jocular estimate of a crowd).
And in such model proverbs as Say
nothing and saw wood or There's never
an old shoe but there's a sock to fit it we
surely see encapsulated the healthy
common sense of the common folk.
I maintain that to analyze speech
habits of this kind is to gain insight into a
people's way of thinking. But there is
one final question to consider. The
history of proverbs as a genre is a chequered one. The Elizabethan age, for example, was soaked in the form; we can
see that Shakespeare, among others,
relies heavily on audience knowledge of
proverbs for his puns, allusions, and
general word-play. By the time of the
more decorous eighteenth century,
however, there was a reaction against
this style of language. Lord Chesterfield
advised his son in 1741 that
Old sayings and common prov-
erbs... are so many proofs of having kept bad and low company.
For example: if, instead of saying
that tastes are different, and that
every man has his own peculiar
one, you should let off a proverb,
and say, That what is one man's
meat is another man's poison; or
else Every one as they like, as the
good man said when he kissed his
cow; everybody would be persuaded that you had never kept
company with anybody above
footmen and housemaids.
As a result of this reaction, an
astonishing number of older proverbs
have perished. But what is the situation
today, in this new world to which so
many of Lord Chesterfield's footmen
and housemaids have come? On Prince
Edward Island the present vitality of the
proverb form is obvious. But the forces
of exaggerated propriety are once more
gaining ground. My own survey shows
that recognition of the proverbs cited
here is greatly below average (I omit the
statistics) among educated Islanders,
middle class Islanders, and urban
Islanders. Of course no single speaker
could be expected to know all of these
sayings in any case. But the conclusion
is plain: if the proportion of these
segments of the population continues to
grow, as it has been growing for many
years, the use of proverbs will correspondingly decline.
On the other hand, if the reader —
even the educated, middle class, urban
reader — wishes as I do to encourge the
proverb form as an excellent sauce,
though not a substitute for the meat
itself, he or she may flavour discourse
with some of the examples given here.
We will all do our part, then, to keep
this evidence of the genius, wit, and
spirit of Prince Edward Island alive.
Sources
(1) A postal survey of proverb usage
among 72 senior citizens across the
Island, conducted in 1979.
(2) A face-to-face survey, almost
completed at time of writing, of 318
Islanders of all ages and backgrounds.
(3) Many kind suggestions from interested Islanders outside these surveys.
(4) The following reference books:
The Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs; The Oxford English Dictionary;
Stevenson's Book of Proverbs, Maxims,
and Familiar Phrases; M.P. Tilley, A
Dictionary of the Proverbs in England in
the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries; Eric Partridge, A Dictionary of
Slang and Unconventional English, and
A Dictionary of Catch Phrases; G.L.
Apperson, English Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases; Brewer's Dictionary of
Phrase and Fable.
From Tyne Valley alone
11