Proverbs or sayings

1) Proverbs for understanding nature and summarizing production experience: such as "There are long worms in the aisles and heavy rain is coming", "There are three treasures in the Northeast: ginseng, mink skin, and uralensis grass."

(2) Proverbs for understanding the society and summarizing the experience of social activities: such as "If a man respects the rich, a dog will bite him" and "If a tiger returns to the mountain, there will be trouble in the future."

(3) Proverbs summarizing general life experience: such as "Cold starts from the feet and disease comes from the mouth", "Get up early in the morning and you will not feel old at eighty".

◆First-rate, second-rater, and third-rater fail, but first-rate, second-rater, and third-rater succeed.

◆If you don’t practice for one day, your hands and feet will be slow, if you don’t practice for two days, you will lose half of your skills, if you don’t practice for three days, you will be a layman, and if you don’t practice for four days, you will stare.

◆Ten years of practice will make you a good literary scholar, but ten years of practice will not make you a good scholar.

◆People practice in the world, and the sword is sharpened on the stone.

◆A journey of a thousand miles is worth ten years of reading.

◆The heart is separated from the belly, and people look at their behavior.

◆Strength is overwhelming, but courage is overwhelming.

◆Don’t talk about speaking for three days, and don’t do manual work for three years.

◆Words are unfounded, but facts are proof.

◆There are big carp swimming in the lake, not as good as the small crucian carp on the table.

◆It is better to speak with your mouth than to be there, and to hear it with your ears is worse than witnessing it.

◆Children in the mountains are not afraid of wolves, and children in the city are not afraid of officials.

◆Ten thousand words may not satisfy you, but a handful of flowing water can quench your thirst.

◆The mountain is climbed step by step, and the boat is rolled out one oar after another.

◆One look is worth less than a thousand lessons, and one practice is worth less than a thousand looks.

◆If you live on a slope for a long time, it is never too steep.

◆Horses look at their teeth, and people look at their words and deeds.

◆If you don’t experience the cold of winter, you won’t know the warmth of spring.

◆If you don’t take the burden, you don’t know the weight; if you don’t walk the long road, you don’t know the distance.

◆If you don’t sleep in the quilt, you don’t know how wide it is.

◆If you don’t get into the water, you will never know how to swim; if you don’t set sail, you will never know how to punt.

◆If you don’t have a family, you don’t know how expensive firewood and rice are; if you don’t have children, you don’t know the kindness of your parents.

◆Your hands won’t get dirty if you don’t touch the bottom of the pot, and your hands won’t get greasy if you don’t hold the oil bottle.

◆The falling water reveals stones, and over time it reveals people’s hearts.

◆The blacksmith should hold the pliers by himself, and the farmer should go to the fields by himself.

◆ Ask the woodcutter when gathering firewood, and ask the boatman when sailing a boat.

◆Better to have done it than to miss it.

◆I was fooled the first time, but became enlightened the second time.

◆Send back water and accumulate mud; experience something and gain wisdom.

◆Hearing is false, seeing is true.

◆The old horse knows the way, the old man is sophisticated.

◆If the old people don’t talk about the past, the younger generations will be wrong.

◆The old beef is chewy and the old man’s words are listening.

◆Old ginger has a strong spiciness, and the elderly have more experience.

◆It is better to see it than to hear it a hundred times, and to do it once is worse than seeing it a hundred times.

◆Suffer once and learn to be good.

◆Only when you are in charge do you know that salt and rice are expensive; only when you go out do you know that the road is difficult.

◆ Just talk without practicing the fake moves, just practice without talking about the real moves, talk and practice all the moves.

◆The more you file, the faster the saw will be, and the more you will gain knowledge.

◆A tree has many roots and people have many knowledge.

◆Chop firewood and go up the mountain, catch birds and go up the tree.

◆Chop wood, chop off the little head, and ask the old man for directions.

◆The casserole will not leak unless it is pounded, and the wood will not be able to penetrate unless it is chipped.

◆Grass cannot cover the eyes of an eagle, and water cannot cover the eyes of a fish.

◆Medicine farmers go into the mountains to see herbs, and hunters go into the mountains to see animals.

◆It is a snake with a cold body, and a wolf with a fishy body.

◆Fragrant flowers may not necessarily be beautiful, and good talk may not necessarily be capable.

◆After some setbacks, I gained some insights.

◆Have extensive experience and know much.

◆If you want to know what is happening in the mountains, ask the old farmers in the countryside.

◆Know the kindness of your parents and hold your children and grandchildren in your arms.

. . . . .

The origin of the proverb "A spider hangs a web, and the rain will clear after a long time"

According to observations, in many places in our country. If you see spiders spreading their webs, the rainy weather will turn fine. If you see spiders closing their webs, the weather will turn rainy.

Spiders can predict the weather, mainly because spiders are very sensitive to changes in humidity in the air. There are many small spinnerets at the tail of the spider. The spinner part is sticky and cool. When rainy weather comes, Due to the high humidity and water vapor in the air, the water vapor easily condenses into small water droplets in the spider's spinneret. This makes the spider find it difficult to spin silk, so it stops letting go of silk and collects the web. On the contrary, when the humidity in the air decreases and the weather improves, the spider spins silk smoothly and sets up its web to catch insects.

According to another study, the legs of spiders can sense sounds with a frequency of 20-50 Hz. When the weather turns fine, insects are more likely to move. Spiders will soon detect the buzzing sound they make when flying, so Then add silk and weave a net, ready to capture. This is exactly the reason why people use the proverb "A spider hangs a web, and the rain will be clear after a long time" to observe whether the weather is clear or rainy.

The origin of the proverb "Eat ginger in the morning and radish in the evening will make the doctor cry with anxiety"

From: Long March No. 1 (Suzhou)

One year, Cixi The Queen Mother suddenly fell seriously ill, suffering from headache, heartache, and abdominal pain. She was so ill that she was dying, and all the civil and military officials in the court were anxious. There were many famous doctors in Beijing, but they were unable to deal with the Queen Mother's illness. Do you have no ability? No, the responsibility is really too great, and I am embarrassed about taking the medicine. If it is too light, it will not be effective, but if it is too heavy, I am afraid that if I make a mistake, I will not be able to bear the consequences. Therefore, the Empress Dowager Cixi's problems became more and more critical day by day, and she was about to come to an end.

The new champion is from Suzhou. He wrote a book saying that there was a famous ancestral doctor in Suzhou named Cao Cangzhou, nicknamed Sai Huatuo. He had a wonderful rejuvenation technique. If he invited him here, maybe the Queen Mother's body could be restored to peace. .

Cao Cangzhou is like a country boy. He usually doesn't like to talk and walks slowly. On this day, when he received the imperial edict, his face suddenly turned pale, he hugged the whole family and cried loudly. He determined that the Queen Mother would not come to Suzhou from the capital to treat him if she was not in a hopeless state. If the Queen Mother could not be cured, the doctor would be buried, and his life would never come back. But the imperial decree could not be violated, so Cao Cangzhou had no choice but to bite the bullet and set off. As soon as he arrived in Beijing and settled in, he used the excuse that he had caught a cold on the road and was bedridden. In fact, the illness was false: he wanted to get to the root of Empress Dowager Cixi's illness. The first big thing is to check what medicine she takes? You won’t know if you don’t check, but you’ll be shocked if you check. Not to mention the delicacies that the Empress Dowager Cixi ate every day, the ginseng alone made her want to take a bath in the ginseng soup every day. There are also bird's nests and white fungus, which are even eaten as food. Cao Cangzhou thought that it had been recorded in medical books: "Too much nourishment will inevitably lead to food obstruction and blockage of the middle burner, which will be in danger." After finding out the source of the disease, he became bolder and went to see a doctor for Empress Dowager Cixi.

Cao Cangzhou did not use any good medicine, and prescribed only herbal medicine, with only five characters: three qian for radish seeds. All the imperial doctors were stunned on the spot, with their tongues hanging out, thinking that this country doctor had come to Beijing to die. They all know the properties of medicine. Radish seeds contain oil. The Queen Mother has always wanted to nourish the body. This medicine is obviously not in line with the Queen Mother's wishes. However, Cao Cangzhou picked the medicine with his own hands, boiled the medicine with his own hands, and delivered the medicine to the Queen Mother's bedroom, waiting for her. After drinking it, he returned to his residence to rest.

The Queen Mother drank three qian of radish seed decoction and had a bowel movement that night, and got up early the next morning. The first thing she did was to thank the miracle doctor Cao Cangzhou. After meeting, she gave Cao Cangzhou a ninth-grade crown and asked him to ride around the capital. Cao Cangzhou received the imperial title. When he returned to his hometown, he had not yet arrived home, but the local official had already built a three-in house for him. From then on, he specialized in treating local villagers at home, not only providing medical treatment, but also delivering medicine. He always persuaded people to eat more radishes when he met them. As time went by, there was a proverb in Suzhou: "If you eat ginger in the morning and eat radishes in the evening, the doctor will cry with anxiety."

Also, proverbs are concise language used by people to describe long-term accumulated experience in production and life. This is its source. .

Spoken sayings, also known as common sayings and proverbs, these three should be synonymous. The word "slang" has been widely used as a linguistic term; the word "shangyan" has the flavor of classical Chinese; the word "slang" has the flavor of spoken language.

Some articles occasionally refer to common sayings as idioms. Both slang and idioms are conventional language forms in Chinese, and they are closely related. The idiom "convention" contains the two words "su" and "成". But from a learning perspective, they still have their own characteristics.

Try to compare the following examples:

A. The big fish eats the small fish, and the small fish eats the shrimp

B. The weak eats the strong.

A. The old crooked tree has been growing for many years. Can't get up

B. It's hard to get back

A. The horns that grow later are longer than the ears that grow first

B. Coming from behind

A. Picked up the sesame seeds and threw away the watermelon

B. Lost a big thing for a small amount

A. You take your Yangguan Road; I will cross my single-plank bridge

B. Parting ways

A. Afraid of wolves before and tigers behind

B. Afraid of head and tail

A. Breaking the casserole to get to the bottom of things

B. Getting to the bottom of things< /p>

A. The tortoise looked at the mung beans and fell in love

B. Falling in love at first sight

In the above sets of examples, A and B have the same meaning, and A is a common saying , B is an idiom. Common sayings are based on images; idioms are characterized by conciseness. Common sayings are mostly complete sentences, varying in length, and can be used in various ways; idioms are mostly stable structures of four characters and neat in form. Common sayings are popular among the people orally, and their writing maintains the characteristics of being popular; idioms are mostly used in written language, and their writing tends to be elegant. From this comparison, we can make a definition from the main aspects: colloquialism is a popular spoken language with images as the main body. Its structural form is relatively stable, but it can be flexible in practical application.

This is the main connotation of the proverb. In terms of denotation, it is inevitably intertwined with the idiom. Although common sayings take image as the main body, they do not exclude conciseness; although idioms feature conciseness, they do not exclude image. Although most idioms have a four-character structure, some are composed of more than four characters; although common sentence structures vary in length, a small number are composed of four characters. Although most common sayings are spoken, they have been widely used in literary works and even in philosophy and science and technology books. With the improvement of people's education level, idioms are also often used in spoken language. In this way, common sayings and idioms may penetrate each other, and there will be overlap. For example:

① A fire broke out at the city gate, affecting the fish in the pond (image, eight characters, idiom → saying)

② Three days to fish, two days to dry the nets (image, eight characters, Idiom → common saying)

③ Add insult to injury (image, four characters, common saying → idiom)

④ Habit becomes natural (concise, five characters, common saying → idiom)

⑤Don’t dare to go too far (image, concise, seven-character, colloquial saying ← → idiom)

Spoken sayings are spoken, and idioms are written. These examples have some characteristics of both common sayings and idioms. It seems that they can be included in both common saying dictionaries and idiom dictionaries. Fortunately, there are not many such cases.

Spoken sayings and idioms may sometimes transform into each other and exist at the same time. For example:

① The bench is not warm ← → The seats are not warm

② I am afraid of breaking the jade bottle when hunting mice ← → Rat-killing device

③ I can’t wait to look at my eyes. < /p>

⑦ Luban plays with a big ax in front of the gate← → Banmen plays with an ax

⑧ I have never drunk ink← → I have no ink on my chest

⑨ I don’t eat for fear of choking← → Stop eating due to choking

⑩What kind of medicine should be taken for any disease←→Prescribe the right medicine to the case

①①Catch all the fish in the river←→Catch them all in one catch

If the sentence structure of the proverb tends to be neat, it may be transformed into Idioms; if idioms add figurative elements, they may be transformed into common sayings. When a common saying is converted into an idiom, it can still maintain its image; when an idiom is converted into a common saying, if it lacks image, it must be supplemented, often turning it into a idiom. (See the idiom below) Common sayings and idioms are both related and different. Common sayings have the advantages of common sayings; idioms have the advantages of idioms. Common proverbs make descriptions lively and idioms make arguments powerful, both of which are worth learning.

2. Proverbs and maxims

Some books refer to proverbs and proverbs as proverbs and compile them together. The compilation together is understandable, but the two are not equivalent. Proverbs are just a part of common sayings. They are common sayings that summarize knowledge and experience and contain ideological meanings.

Such as:

①White wine makes people’s faces red, gold makes people’s hearts black

②If you don’t listen to the old man’s words, you will suffer losses before your eyes

③No matter how small the country’s affairs are, they are still big. Yes, no matter how big a personal matter is, it is still small

④The train runs fast, all because of the headband

⑤The country is easy to change, but the nature is hard to change

⑥ When gold is broken into pieces, its weight is the same

⑦It relies on mountains to fall, and water flows

⑧If you keep the green mountains, you are not afraid of running out of firewood

⑨Ink can be ground thicker

⑩A man becomes bad when he is rich; a woman becomes rich when she becomes bad

①①When people unite, the mountains will move

①②A dog that bites will not reveal its presence Teeth

①③As long as you work hard, an iron ruler can be ground into a needle

The motto also summarizes knowledge and experience and contains ideological significance. But if you distinguish carefully, there are still slight differences. The knowledge and experience summarized by proverbs are mainly social aspects, mostly logical thinking, philosophical statements, and often come from famous works; while the knowledge and experience summarized by proverbs are not limited to social aspects, but also include natural science and production practice (such as agricultural proverbs) , it comes from the mouths of the people, mostly belongs to image thinking, and is a literary language. For this distinction, aphorisms should be classified into the category of written language, and proverbs should be classified into the category of spoken language. However, it is inevitable that there will be overlaps.

A, fullness brings harm, modesty benefits (written)

B, humility makes people progress, pride makes people fall behind (spoken)

A, those who are ambitious Things come true (written language)

B. Nothing is difficult in the world, only for those who are willing (spoken language)

A. Worry about the world's worries first, and rejoice after the world's happiness (written language)

B, hardship comes first, pleasure comes last (colloquial)

Strictly speaking, for the above three groups, A is a motto and B is a proverb. However, due to the improvement of people's education level, these classical mottos have also entered spoken language. We can only make distinctions as much as possible, but we have to admit that there are actually some overlaps

Part of the proverbs are proverbs, and the other part are descriptive sentences. They do not summarize knowledge and experience, but just express a mood. Such as:

①I don’t recognize the money for this pot of wine

②I don’t know which end of the kang is hot

③The cicada makes a faint sound as it passes through the other branches

④Pick your nose horizontally and raise your eyes vertically

⑤Patch your eyebrows and beard

⑥Get up early and rush to the evening market

⑦Please beg grandpa, sue grandma

⑧The moon in foreign countries is rounder than that in China

⑨Shaking your head doesn’t count

⑩Looking at it or not eating it at all

①①Open one eye, Close one eye

①②Wear red when you leave, green when you come

This part of the sentence is descriptive, different from proverbs summarizing knowledge and experience, and there is no certainty The terminology is now only generally called colloquialism. It is really necessary to distinguish it from proverbs and give it a definite name.

Some books call it "idioms", but the language phenomena involved are "slang", such as: back to back, burning the midnight oil, playing the piano randomly, working hard, taking advantage of others, etc. In the preface of "Five Thousand Sayings", the author once used "idioms" to refer to descriptive sayings. The definition of the term idiom is not very clear. Some dictionaries use it as a term higher than common sayings and idioms, and it itself has a similar pronunciation to "common saying". In some dialect areas, it is even a homophone. As a term, it has its shortcomings. After careful consideration, I thought it would be better to use "slang" instead.

Slang, this term is sometimes confused with colloquialisms, and is also called slang. This "slang" is related to the "li" in "countryside", which literally means "countryside people". Slang often refers to patois with dialect color. Since it is sometimes confused with colloquialisms, and "idioms" actually mostly refer to slang, it is better to borrow the word "slang" to specifically refer to these descriptive colloquialisms.

Four, idioms and witticisms

Idioms and witticisms are basically synonyms. Xiehouyu is a linguistic term, and witticism is a verbal term.

Xiehouyu is a half-word in form (the first half is an image or example, and the second half is an explanation or explanation). In fact, it is to make the words more vivid and specific. Therefore, idioms should be included in common sayings.

However, the images in the idioms are often cartoonish, with a playful and ridiculing tone. It uses various rhetorical devices to modify characters, words, phrases, and sentences (including the proverbs themselves) to make them lively. Therefore, it is somewhat different from proverbs and descriptive sayings (renamed slang). Such as:

① Narcissus does not bloom, pretending to be garlic (modifier) ??

② Cat cries for mice, fake compassion (modifier) ??

③ Flood washes away the Dragon King In the temple, one's own people do not recognize one's own people (modify the sentence)

④The carpenter wears shackles and suffers from his own troubles (modify the idiom)

⑤Zhang Fei threads a needle, his big eyes stare at the small eyes (modifies the idiom) itself)

Some idioms are often transformed into idioms in order to enhance their image.

①Blowing fire with a rolling pin, knowing nothing about it

②Hitting birds with gold marbles is not worth the loss

③Embroidering peonies on green satin is the icing on the cake

④ Walking in the mill road, no head or tail

⑤Crabs crossing the river, all hands and feet

⑥Fifteen buckets to fetch water, all up and down

⑦The dung beetle became a cicada and climbed to the sky in one step

⑧Mix green onions with tofu, everything is pure and pure

⑨The prince of hell issued a notice and made a lot of lies

The good and bad comments are mixed, and some of the comments are good and bad. Neither the language nor the image is good, and some of them are even language rubbish and should not be abused. Some commonly used idioms have better images and are more closely combined with proverbs and descriptive sayings (slang). For example:

①The weasel looks at the chicken, and the more he looks at it, the chicken becomes rarer (the former is an image, the latter is an explanation, experience → proverb)

②Fetching water from a bamboo basket is in vain (the former is Image, followed by explanation, descriptive colloquialism → slang)

③ Sesame seeds are blooming, growing taller and taller (formerly image, followed by explanation, descriptive colloquialism → slang)

To sum up Said, proverbs, slang (descriptive sayings), and idioms, these three parts constitute the whole of the saying. Common sayings are spoken sentences, which are different from written idioms and maxims. They are the two major systems of spoken and written Chinese.

Proverbs are fixed sentences widely circulated among the people. They are the crystallization of the experiences and lessons summed up by the people in their long-term life practice. Although the proverbs are simple and popular, they reflect very profound truths.

Xiehouyu

Xiehouyu is a unique wisdom and interesting language of the Chinese people, and it is also a popular grammar among the people.

Xiehouyu is a special language form created by the people in their daily life practice. It generally consists of two parts. The first half is a metaphor, like a riddle, and the second half is an explanation, like the answer to a riddle, which is very natural and appropriate.

For example:

A slap cannot make a sound - ;

The bound feet of a lazy woman - .

In ordinary language. Usually, as long as the first half is spoken and "xie" is removed from the second half, the original meaning can be understood and guessed, so it is called "xieyuyu".

The name "Xiehou" first appeared in the Tang Dynasty. "Old Tang Book." The so-called "Zheng Wu Xie Hou Style" (a "Xie Hou" style poem) has been mentioned in "The Biography of Zheng Wei". But as a language form and language expression, it has appeared as far back as the pre-Qin period. Such as "Warring States Policy." "Chu Ce Four": "It is not too late to mend the fold after the sheep has been lost." This means that it is not too late to mend the sheepfold after the sheep is lost. This is the earliest comment we have seen today.

We have reason to believe that this was a popular saying among the people at that time and was based on the life experience of ordinary people. Although such ancient sayings are rarely found in written records, there are believed to be many among the people. For example, Qian Daxin's "Heng Yan Lu" contains: "Send goose feathers thousands of miles away, things are light and people's intentions are heavy, which is also the proverb of the Song Dynasty recorded in Fuzhai." This kind of postscript is still used by people today.

When studying the origin of Xiehouyu, some linguists and linguistics monographs also mentioned other related names. For example, Chen Wangdao, in "Rhetoric", listed the idioms in the "Tibetan Ci" section and introduced them; Guo Shaoyu, in "Research on Proverbs", pointed out that the idioms originated from "shooting fuyu" (a form similar to guessing puzzles). ); some other books also list names such as "argot", "riddle", "proverb", "slang", "quip" and so on.

By comparison, most of them reveal some similarities and differences. Regarding the classification of idioms, Xiang Wuding said. What's more, there are many idioms, which have several properties. It is difficult to classify them scientifically. For the convenience of reference, we put all the homophonic words in the Xiehouyu entries into one category, and the rest are divided into three categories according to the nature of the metaphorical part.

First, homophones. For example:

Empty coffin burial -

Scallions mixed with tofu -

This type of idiom uses homophones or near-syllables to harmonize, and derives another required meaning from the original meaning. This kind of idiom often requires several twists and turns to understand its meaning. Therefore it is more interesting.