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This study deals with a field that has not yet been much explored: mixed (contaminated) French proverbs, i. e., anti-proverbs containing more than one phraseological unit (of which at least one must be a proverb or a proverb pattern). Using a corpus of 70 French compound proverbs, the analysis has been done on the basis of
- the number of original phraseological units in the compound (up to 7) the nature of the phraseological units contained in the compound proverb (proverb, proverbial expression, proverb pattern) the linkage between the units (are they isolated from, or embedded in, each other?) the familiarity of the original units used for the mixing topics (sexuality, women, drinking) stylistic labels (colloquial, vulgar) the integrity of the units to be found in the compound proverb (Is the first/second part of the first/second unit present in the compound? If it is, does it appear in an unmodified or a modified form?) the distribution of original units and parts of units to make up a compound compound patterns common points in original units twins (compounds made up of the same original units)
In this study we analyze the results of a sociolinguistic survey conducted in Hungary in 2004–2005, with the goal of exploring some popular views of the proverb and anti-proverb and their functions in contemporary Hungarian society. Using data collected from 298 subjects, we focus on three major questions. First, our aim was to establish the lists of the proverbs most frequently used nowadays, as well as the ones most popular for variation. Our second goal was to discover our subjects’ thoughts about the use of proverbs and anti-proverbs, as well as about their views of the people who use them. And, last but not least, our third task was to compare what people say about their own usage of proverbs and anti-proverbs to what they think about the ways in which other people use these expressions.The complex analysis of the results of the survey can illumine interesting aspects; for example, the correlation between the subject’s gender and age and the use of proverbs and anti-proverbs. We also have to deal with the contradictions of folk concepts concerning this topic: there is a significant contrast between the ways in which subjects describe their own habits and the ways in which they talk about other people’s use of proverbs and anti-proverbs.
On the basis of French, Hungarian, English, German and Russian corpora of anti-proverbs (deliberate proverb innovations, also known as alterations, mutations, parodies, transformations, variations, wisecracks, and fractured proverbs), we examine word play based on polysemy, homonymy, and homophony. After a survey of the proverbs most frequently used for these types of alteration, this study investigates anti-proverbs linked to the theme of sexuality. Finally, we explore the use of proper nouns in proverb transformations based on polysemy, homonymy, and homophony.
To fill a gap in paremiology, this study, based on a 100-item corpus, deals with French anti-proverbs about food and drink (both being important subjects in France). The paper begins with a discussion of the difficulties involved in distinguishing proverb variants from anti-proverbs and then proceeds to describe those characteristics shared by the proverbs and anti-proverbs on these subjects: there are twice as many expressions about food as about drink and five times as many about alcohol as about soft drinks; furthermore, proverbs and anti-proverbs possess a similar distribution of usage labels and similar pairs of antonymic utterances. But there are notable ways in which the proverbs differ from the anti-proverbs: while proverbs tend to discourage excess, anti-proverbs celebrate it; and while proverbs focus on wine, anti-proverbs mention mainly beer.Anti-proverbs about food and drink are a characteristic part of the French anti-proverbial stock, sharing several peculiarities with the genre as a whole (e.g., including the proportion of compound proverbs in both corpuses, as well as the proportion of items that are most frequently used).
In folklore research the notion and the meaning of “humour” are generally unclear and underdeveloped. Proverbs are usually considered as “witty”, therefore they seem to be “humorous”. But, in fact, the vast majority of proverbs are not humorous. “All proverbs” might be humorous in a specific context or usage, but this does not mean that the proverb texts themselves are humorous. The paper discusses a famous Hungarian proverb collection, published by Z. Ujváry, in which a single peasant informant, in each case with his own classification, wrote down 1,143 proverbs and sayings. Only 38 items (i.e. 3.5%) were labelled by him as “joking, ironic, mocking, malicious”, etc. The analysis of the proverb texts shows that only very few proverb texts (less than 1%) have a sense of humour. The author has used a modern Hungarian proverb collection as test material, and is convinced about the assumption: only a very small percentage of the proverb texts are humorous in themselves.
Proverbs have never been considered sacrosanct; on the contrary, they have frequently been used as satirical, ironic or humorous comments on a given situation. Wolfgang Mieder has coined the term “Antisprichwort” (anti-proverb) for such deliberate proverb innovations (also known as alterations, mutations, parodies, transformations, variations, wisecracks, fractured proverbs). The focus of this study is on different mechanisms of variation in Anglo-American, German, French, Russian and Hungarian anti-proverbs. The mechanisms discussed and exemplified in the study include replacing a single word, substituting two or more words, changing the second part of the proverb, adding new words, adding literal interpretations, repeating identical or phonetically similar words, mixing two or more proverbs, word-order reversal, rhyme, changing the first part of the proverb, and omission of words.
Paronomasia is a popular form of wordplay often used to transform proverbs into antiproverbs (deliberate proverb innovations, also known as alterations, mutations, parodies, transformations, variations, wisecracks, and fractured proverbs) by replacing certain phonemes with similar ones, or by adding or omitting phonemes. The present paper describes and exemplifies this sort of pun by using selected German, Hungarian, English, French and Russian language data. The first part of the paper focuses on the linguistic aspects of paronomasia; the second part stresses semantic characteristics. This study also examines the role of wordplay on the theme of sexuality, and then comments on the use of proper nouns in proverb transformations. We conclude that all five of the languages in our research corpus use similar, if not identical, approaches to forge a “twisted wisdom” out of a simple proverb.
While a number of anti-proverb collections as well as linguistic studies of such proverb parodies have appeared in several languages during the past twenty-five years, they have for the most part ignored the folkloristic importance of anti-proverbs as the source of new folk proverbs. There is no doubt that most anti-proverbs are one-day-wonders in that they will never enter general folk speech by gaining a certain currency and traditionality. However, there are at least some anti-proverbs that do express new wisdom and which have by now been accepted as innovatively expressed wisdom based on traditional proverbial structures. All of this is taking place in the vast area of the mass media (newspapers, magazines, radio, television, and the Internet), enabling such newly discovered wisdom to reach thousands of people who in turn use these texts to such a degree that they can be considered to be new proverbs. It behooves paremiologists to study these new proverbs, and paremiographers should definitely include these proverbs in their revised or new proverb collections. Proverb scholarship throughout the world will not advance if scholars do not pay proper attention to the proverbial lore of modernity, with anti-proverbs at least in part being important sources for such new proverbs.
