The Russian language has many proverbs for different occasions: about love and friendship, evil and goodness, courage and cowardice, about loy alty and betrayal… A special place in this series is occupied by proverbs about lies. What is the origin story of these sayings?
What are proverbs?
A proverb is a short aphorism that came "from the people". As a rule, this or that life situation is played up in it, a specific phenomenon, a human vice, is ridiculed. Folk sayings are both in prose and rhyming between themselves in two parts.
Proverbs have been counting down life since antiquity. The first collections of Russian folk sayings date back to the twelfth century, but in ancient Egypt, for example, they generally arose even before our era! Ancient Russian chronicles and works that have survived to this day, for example, "The Tale of Igor's Campaign", are also a storehouse of wise aphorisms.
Later proverbs appeared thanks to classical Russian works and authors - Pushkin, Krylov and Griboyedov and others contributed a lot to this. We may not even know that this or that popular phrase is based on an equally famous fable orfairy tales. The famous collector of proverbs was Vladimir Ivanovich Dal, who called them "a code of folk wisdom."
How is a proverb different from a saying?
Often people confuse proverbs and sayings. These genres are very similar, but nevertheless there are differences between them. Both of them belong to folklore (that is, oral folk art), however, the proverb has an instructive meaning, a mandate, but not the proverb. “Without labor, you cannot even pull a fish out of a pond” - this is a proverb, it teaches not to be lazy. “Seven Fridays in a week” is a saying, there is no instruction in it. Also, sayings don't rhyme.
Meaning of proverbs about lies and truth
As already mentioned, sayings about lying are among the most common in our culture. Of course, it is impossible to tell the story and the true meaning of all the existing proverbs about lies - there are too many of them. But some examples are quite real. Indeed, often we do not even know the essence of the phrase we are saying!
Lies have glass legs
The meaning of this proverb can be explained with the help of another: “Everything secret always becomes clear.”
True hurts the eyes
The truth may not be too pleasant, and then you don’t want to know it, and the reaction to it can be even aggressive.
Meli, Emelya, your week
Usually this phrase is said when they do not believe a person, or when he utters a clear lie, a fable.
Not a rank is respected, but a person by his truth
This means that even if you are rich, but constantly talkinga lie, you will be treated worse than a poor but honest person.
Varvara is my aunt, but the truth is my sister
Sincerity is valued above all relationships.
Everyone seeks the truth, but not everyone creates it
Everyone wants to be honest with him, but not everyone has this quality.
If you lie once, who will believe you
This means that if you were caught lying at least once, you will no longer be trusted at all or will be less.
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proverb about lies Better the bitter truth than the sweet lie.
Truth can be hard to bear, but even that is better than being ignorant and holding your nose.
Don't listen, don't listen, but don't bother lying
If you doubt the words of a person, but his wrongness or deliberate lies have not been proven, you should not say anything - it can turn against you.
The mouth of a baby speaks the truth
Children are the purest creatures, as a rule, they are naive and unsophisticated, they do not know how to lie, while adults often use lies to achieve their own selfish goals.
The truth does not burn in fire and does not sink in water
No matter how much you want to deceive a person and hide the true state of things from him, the truth will still come out sooner or later.
English proverbs about lying
Not only Russian folklore is rich in folk wisdom. Proverbs about lying, of course, exist in other languages. Since the most common language is English,Here are a few sayings from Britain (of course, in translation). They are also quite interesting.
- You can't get away from people's lies.
- Liars must have good memories.
- A liar is not believed when he tells the truth.
- Truth and murder will be released.
- They don't tell the whole truth.
- Lies breed lies.
- Truth is stranger than fiction.
Thus, any language is rich in its culture. You just need to know the true meaning of the words used and not "shake the air in vain." Then these folk phenomena will live longer!
