There are a lot of phrases out there. And proverbs. Meanings to try to make sense of this life.
Chances are…. you’ve heard a truck load of them… in your day.
Absence makes the heart grow fonder.
All that glitters is not gold.
Don’t change horses midstream.
Don’t count your chickens before they are hatched.
Don’t cut your nose off to spite your face.
Good things come to those who wait.
In most every case… we either agree or disagree.
First up.
Birds of a feather flock together. Yes or No?
I tend to agree with this one. In general terms. I think a lot of times, people with a certain set of religious, or spiritual convictions tend to flock one another. Same with politics. Yet, I have some friends with completely different views on these things than I. Generally, in those cases though… they have much more to offer. Like… boy oh boy… can they cook! Or they have season tickets to the Steelers Games. You know.
Okay…. what about this one.
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Again, in a broad sense … I think this one is good. Yet. There are times when something has been working the same way for 100 years. But it may not be working at its best. Small communities are classic for this. The phrase… “But we’ve ALWAYS done it this way.” This way of thinking tends to stunt progress. However… in certain cases… like your washer and dryer. Or your wall clock. If it ain’t broke… leave well enough alone.
In the kingdom of the blind the one eyed man is king
Necessity is the mother of invention
Rob Peter to pay Paul
The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence
…. and on and on they go. Most of them are clever and have a meaning that we can take away. Whether we agree or not… is an entirely different matter. For instance… “An eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth.” If we follow this one… everyone is blind and can’t chew solids.
The one that hit me today was this.
“It is neither here nor there.”
I mean…. for crying out loud… sometimes these things make absolutely no sense…. whatsoever. If something is neither here… nor there…. then where in the holy-heck-a-moonie is it?
Oh… I am thinking it HAS to be somewhere. I looked up the origin. Apparently, in first appeared in the 1500s. It was first recorded by a dude named Arthur Golding. He wrote a translation of “The sermons of J. Calvin upon Deuteronomie”
That certainly clears things up…. like mud.
Which brings me to this…
Two wrongs don’t make a right
There’s safety in numbers
Variety is the spice of life
The opera ain’t over till the fat lady sings
When the going gets tough, the tough get going.
If phrases were horses…we’d get down to brass tacks…. and we’d take the cake.
and that my friends is neither here, nor there.
I guarantee it.