Battling proverbs

kw: wordplay, proverbs, collections

Over time I have gathered a number of pairs of proverbs that have opposite meanings. A quick search of the web scared up a few more. In no particular order, here are 31 such sets. In a few cases, one proverb is contradicted by two or more others.

A silent man is a wise one.
A man without words is a man without thoughts.

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.
Don't beat your head against a stone wall.

Don't cross that bridge until you come to it.
Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today. / Forewarned is forearmed. / If you fail to plan, plan to fail.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder.
Out of sight, out of mind.

Two heads are better than one.
Paddle your own canoe.

Time waits for no man.
Haste makes waste.

He who hesitates is lost.
Look before you leap. / Act in haste, repent at leisure.

You're never too old to learn.
You can't teach an old dog new tricks.

It is better to be safe than sorry.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Don't look a gift horse in the mouth.
Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.

Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.
Nice guys finish last.

Hitch your wagon to a star.
Don't bite off more that you can chew.

The best things in life are free.
You get what you pay for. / There is no such thing as a free lunch.

Too many cooks spoil the broth.
Many hands make light work.

Clothes make the man.
Don't judge a book by its cover. / Appearances are deceiving.

Do it well, or not at all.
Half a loaf is better than none.

The squeaky wheel gets the grease.
Silence is golden.

Familiarity breeds contempt.
Better the devil you know than the devil you don't.

Great minds think alike.
Idiots seldom differ.

Birds of a feather flock together.
Opposites attract.

Winners never quit.
Quit while you're ahead.

Look before you leap.
You don't know what you can do until you try.

The bigger, the better.
Good things come in small packages.

The more, the merrier.
Two's company; three's a crowd.

Above all, to thine own self be true.
When in Rome, do as the Romans do.

What's good for the goose is good for the gander.
One man's meat is another man's poison.

Actions speak louder than words.
The pen is mightier than the sword.

Never change horses in the middle of a stream.
Variety is the spice of life.

Practice makes perfect.
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

A penny saved is a penny earned.
The love of money is the root of all evil.

Hold fast to the words of your ancestors.
Wise men make proverbs and fools repeat them.

Pixie dust

kw: musings, words, proverbs

On occasion my grandmother would say, "Everybody is a bit pixillated, except me and thee; and sometimes I think thee is also pixillated." She claimed it was an old Quaker saying, in which "pixillated", from "pixie", is a nice way of saying "crazy". Though she was a Methodist, her grandmother was a Quaker. She would say it to one of us boys who was being silly.

These days you can't repeat this saying and be understood. The word "pixelated" has been coined along with digital imagery, to mean "low resolution so the pixels show", or "deliberately exaggerated pixels" as in this image.

A pixel is nowhere near as wonderful a concept as a pixie. A perfectly beautiful word has been superseded by technology.

NEBULA Awards Showcase 2005

kw: book reviews, story reviews, science fiction, fantasy, proverbs

The NEBULA Awards books present the best of the best, as judged by a panel of SF&F writers. Been doing so since 1965. This volume is the 41st. The first I read was the 3d, in 1967.

I've observed vast changes in "science fiction" over forty years. The most significant was the gradual merger of Science Fiction with Fantasy, mostly accomplished during the 1990s. To my observation, it began when SF began calling itself Speculative Fiction, late in the 1970s. Prior to that, SF and F were often at enmity. There is still a valid criterion: the former genre is based on known or reasonably extrapolated science, with one or two "impossibles" thrown in, such as faster-than-light travel or time travel. Once the rules of engagement are agreed on, the story proceeds accordingly. By contrast, fantastic fiction is usually, well, fantastic. Fresh problems that the protagonists face are often solved by something quite out of the blue. One doesn't know the rules of engagement from the beginning. I might here observe that life seems to work this way more often than not...

One thing I really don't like reading is "sword and sorcery". Someone once observed that in S&S, the hero must be "very, very strong; very, very brave; and very, very stupid." As a person who lives in my imagination, who lives by his wits, and who was the classic 4-eyed nerd, I find S&S heroes more akin to playground bullies than to anyone with whom I'd like to share an evening by the fireside. My kind of hero is Dick Feynman or Stephen Jay Gould.

Nor do I like stories that don't resolve to some kind of conclusion. I like stories that go somewhere. In a satisfying story, transformation occurs. I have a proverb: All literature reveals its author; good literature lets us see our world; the best literature helps us know ourselves, and become better.

So, how does the present volume stand up? At the moment I've read 1/3 of it, five stories. I've skipped the essays, but will get back to them. I'm pretty pleased. Of course, the writing is stellar, compelling. One of the five is very close to an ultra-classic theme (I'll come back to that in a later post). I'd say, regardless of one's taste, the power of the story-telling in this volume makes it worth the read.

I'll review individual stories in later posts.