by Mardy Grothe
Never generalize.
Remember to never split an infinitive.
Never, ever use repetitive redundancies.
Never use prepositions to end sentences with.
Never do anything virtuous until you minimize the damage you will do.EDGAR SCHNEIDER
Never speak ill of yourself! You can count on your friends for that.CHARLES-MAURICE DE TALLEYRAND
Typically, it is enemies who say bad things about us, so this quip from the famous nineteenth-century French statesman points to a fascinating human phenomenon—many of our friends derive a certain pleasure from either speaking ill of us themselves or passing along the negative comments of others. The Canadian journalist and humorist Bob Edwards was clearly inspired by Talleyrand’s observation when he wrote: “Never exaggerate your faults; your friends will attend to that.”
Never economize on luxuries.ANGELA THIRKELL, attributed
Never have children, only grandchildren.GORE VIDAL, quoting his grandfather
The line is often attributed directly to Vidal, but he heard it from his maternal grandfather, Senator Thomas Gore of Oklahoma (the first blind U.S. senator). The senator had two children, Nina and Thomas, but he was not close with either of them. When Nina’s first marriage resulted in the birth of young Gore Vidal in 1925, the senator took a genuine interest in his first grandchild. As the years passed, when the precocious grandson served as both a reader and a guide for his grandfather, the two became very close. In Palimpsest: A Memoir (1995), Vidal wrote:His son and daughter had always been annoying to him and of little consequence to anyone else, while I, who read to him gladly, had been a treasure.
Sometime during his early school years, Vidal began to hear his grandfather offering the never have children, only grandchildren line to many people. After Vidal achieved fame, he always mentioned the origin of the saying, but many regarded it as so quintessentially Vidal that they found it easier to cite him as the author.
seventeen
Never Cut What You Can Untie
Metaphorical Neverisms
In a 1941 press conference in Canada’s capital city of Ottawa, Winston Churchill said: “The organ grinder still has hold of the monkey’s collar.” Churchill was describing the relationship between the German dictator Adolf Hitler and the Italian premier Benito Mussolini, and this was his way of saying that Mussolini was nothing more than Hitler’s lackey.
Churchill often expressed himself in figurative language, and the metaphor of the monkey and the organ grinder showed up frequently in his writings and remarks. In Safire’s Political Dictionary (1988), William Safire reported that Churchill was once asked by the British ambassador to Rome if, during an upcoming visit to Italy, he was planning to raise an issue directly with Mussolini or with Mussolini’s foreign minister. Churchill replied:
Never hold discussions with the monkey
when the organ grinder is in the room.
When people speak metaphorically, they are communicating on two different levels simultaneously. In this case, Churchill was literally making an observation about monkeys and organ grinders while figuratively reminding people that they should not waste time with an underling when they can talk directly with that person’s superior. If he had said never waste time dealing with a lapdog, he would have used another metaphor to make the same point.
The difference between literal and figurative language may also be seen in these words from one of history’s most famous fictional characters:
Never look for birds of this year in the nests of the last.
When Cervantes put these words into the mouth of Don Quixote, the legendary Man of La Mancha wasn’t making an observation about bird hunting, but rather describing the danger of walking into the future with one’s eyes on the past.
I examined metaphorical language in a previous book, I Never Metaphor I Didn’t Like (2008). A saying is metaphorical when it describes one thing by relating it to something else, or when it makes a connection between two apparently different things—as in this Winston Churchill quotation:
Smoking cigars is like falling in love;
first you are attracted to its shape;
you stay with it for its flavor;
and you must always remember never, never let the flame go out.
This remark was a true feat of association, the first time anyone had ever established a link between smoking cigars and falling in love. After stating the resemblance between the two disparate activities, Churchill pursued the metaphor, by talking about shape and flavor. And then in the beautiful concluding line, he offered a literal tip to cigar smokers and a metaphorical one to lovers. The final line illustrates the essential characteristic of metaphorical language—at one level, the saying communicates one message, and at another level something quite different. This business of saying one thing but meaning another is often called “indirect communication.” It is the hallmark of many proverbial sayings.
Below are five classic proverbs, all examples of metaphorical language:
Never cross a bridge until you come to it.
Never burn your bridges behind you.
Never make a mountain out of a molehill.
Never bite the hand that feeds you.
Never put the cart before the horse.
Indirect communication is also the essential method by which, for many centuries, fables, allegories, and parables have transmitted moral lessons:
Never count your chickens before they’re hatched.
This saying comes from a famous Aesop fable. A young maid carrying a pail of milk to market begins daydreaming about what she’ll buy from the sale of the milk. The money can be used to buy eggs, she thinks, which will then produce many chickens, which then might fetch a handsome price when sold at market. With all of that money, she could buy a fancy dress that would impress all the young men. But when the young men make advances, she will toss her head back proudly and refuse them. In this proud-thinking moment, she shook her head back in unison with the thought—and the pail fell off her head and spilled the milk on the ground. The moral of the story in most early versions was: “Don’t count your chickens before they are hatched.” Today, though, the lesson is just as likely to begin with never as with don’t. The saying is literally about counting chickens and figuratively about being overly optimistic. From the seventeenth century, a similar proverb has advised, “Never cackle till your egg is laid.”
If you’re a native English speaker, the meaning of the previous sayings will be obvious, but such idiomatic expressions can present quite a challenge to new students of the language. Even with native speakers, though, the meaning of some metaphorical sayings could never be guessed without an explanation or an understanding of the context in which they were made. I challenge you to correctly interpret the meaning of a line that D. H. Lawrence wrote in a 1908 letter to Blanche Jennings:
Never set a child afloat on the flat sea of life
with only one sail to catch the wind.
It’s a beautiful line, and I’m sure many readers could have a field day coming up with fanciful interpretations. In this line, though, Lawrence was talking about the value of being known by more than one first name. Ms. Jennings was known to everyone only by the name Blanche, and Lawrence felt this put her at a severe disadvantage. “One name is not sufficient for anyone,” he wrote, adding that he felt blessed to be known by seven names. Continuing the nautical metaphor, and combining it with a sartorial one, he expressed his good fortune this way:I am called Bertie, Bert, David, Herbert, Billy, William, and Dick; I am a full rigged schooner; I have a wardrobe as complete as the man’s-about-town.
In the pages to follow, we’ll be examining many more metaphorical neverisms. In some cases, the meaning will be readily apparent, as in Joseph Joubert’s classic warning about forcing a permanent solution on a temporary problem:
Never cut what you can untie.
In other cases, the meaning may not be clear, as in this popular Wall Street adage:
/> Never try to catch a falling knife.
This saying warns against buying a stock that is in free-fall. If you decide to make such a risky move, the consequences are likely to be similar to catching a falling knife with your bare hands—you will get bloody.
With some quotations, the metaphor does not appear in the first portion of the saying—where the word never actually occurs—but in the explanation:
Never give up;
for even rivers someday wash dams away.ARTHUR GOLDEN
Never mind trifles.
In this world a man must either be anvil or hammer.HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Never despise the translator.
He’s the mailman of human civilization.ALEXANDER PUSHKIN
In other cases, the neverism appears at the end of an observation, after the way has been paved by a beautiful or important metaphorical thought:
Language is the apparel in which your thoughts parade before the public.
Never clothe them in vulgar or shoddy attire.GEORGE W. CRANE
One should treat one’s fate as one does one’s health;
enjoy it when it is good, be patient with it when it is poor,
and never attempt any drastic cure save as an ultimate resort.FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
And with others, the metaphorical nature of the observation occurs because of personification, the longstanding practice of imbuing inanimate objects, animals, and abstract concepts with human qualities:
Never chase a lie.
Let it alone, and it will run itself to death.LYMAN BEECHER, American clergyman and father of
Harriet Beecher Stowe & Henry Ward Beecher
In the pages to follow, you will find more metaphorical admonitions. I’ll offer explanations of some, and brief commentary on others. I’ll let others stand on their own in order to let you exercise your own interpretive skill. If the meaning of a saying eludes you at first, don’t give up too soon. In my experience, there are few things more enjoyable than struggling over a quotation’s meaning—and then suddenly getting it.
Never play cat-and-mouse games if you’re a mouse.DON ADDIS, American cartoonist
Never place a period where God has placed a comma.GRACIE ALLEN
Never hammer a screw.STEPHEN ANDREW
Never let your mouth write a check that your body can’t cash.ANONYMOUS
This saying, which first emerged in the African-American subculture of the 1960s, is a hip extension of the saying Put up or shut up. There are a number of variants, with body being replaced by posterior, butt, and ass. The saying got a huge boost in popularity in the 1970s after Flip Wilson’s character “Geraldine” said it on The Flip Wilson Show. In Chili Dogs Always Bark at Night (1989), Lewis Grizzard offered this variation: “Never let your mind write a check your body can’t cash.”
Never stand between a dog and a fire hydrant.ANONYMOUS
Never respect men merely for their riches, but rather for their philanthropy;
we do not value the sun for its height, but for its use.GAMALIEL BAILEY
This thought comes from an American physician who turned to what is now called advocacy journalism after he became an abolitionist. Bailey occupies an important footnote in history. In 1851, while editor of the abolitionist newspaper The New Organ, he began the serial publication of an antislavery novel by an unknown American writer named Harriett Beecher Stowe. Over the next forty weeks, the installments generated so much interest that in 1852, it was published as a full-length book. Uncle Tom’s Cabin galvanized public sentiment against slavery, selling 300,000 copies in its first year of publication, and eventually becoming the bestselling novel of the nineteenth century.
Never dull your shine for somebody else.TYRA BANKS, in a 2007 episode
of America’s Next Top Model
Never wrestle with a chimney sweep.TONY BENN, citing advice from his father
In 1993, Benn was a senior official in Great Britain’s Labour Party when he told a reporter that “The whole wisdom of humanity is summed up” in a number of sayings he heard as a child from his father. This one advised him to shun the dirty political tricks of his opponents. The advice is similar to Never wrestle with a pig, a saying featured earlier in the classic neverisms chapter. It also bears a resemblance to an admonition that sportswriter Grantland Rice commonly heard from his grandmother: “Never get into an argument about cesspools with an expert.” In the United States, people convey the same message when they say, “Never get into a pissing contest with a skunk.”
The rule in carving holds good as to criticism;
never cut with a knife what you can cut with a spoon.CHARLES BUXTON
Never hunt rabbit with dead dog.CHARLIE CHAN, offering ancient Chinese wisdom
In nearly fifty films, a long-running radio program, and a 1950s television series, Charlie Chan was a Chinese-born detective working for the Honolulu Police Department. Beginning with the 1925 film The House Without a Key, the cinematic role of Chan was played by six different actors. Chan’s crime-solving efforts were often frustrated by the ineptness of his two sons, referred to as “Number One” and “Number Two.” Some of Chan’s attempts to spout ancient Chinese wisdom were accurate (“Long journey always start with one short step”), but others were clearly the creation of the screenwriters (“Mind like parachute—only function when open”). Other Chan neverisms included:
Never believe nightmare, no matter how real it may seem.
Ancient proverb say: “Never bait trap with wolf to catch wolf.”
Learn from hen. Never boast about egg until after hen’s birthday.
Never seem wiser, nor more learned, than the people you are with.
Wear your learning, like your watch, in a private pocket;
and do not pull it out, and strike it, merely to show you have one.LORD CHESTERFIELD (Philip Dormer Stanhope),
in a 1748 letter to his son
Never Attack a Fortress Before You Drain the Moat JOHN M. COMER, title of 1983 guidebook for parents
about evaluating textbooks and instructional materials
Never try to milk a steer.JAY P. DECIMA, in his 2004 book Start Small,
Profit Big in Real Estate
DeCima was making the point that we should thoroughly investigate people who offer get-rich-quick schemes. He added: “You can only get milk from a dairy cow.”
Never Buy a Hat If Your Feet Are Cold:
Take Charge of Your Career and Your Life KEN FELDERSTEIN, title of 1990 book
Never rest on your oars; go forward or you go back.JOHN GALSWORTHY,
from his 1924 play Old English
Never have a companion who casts you in the shade.BALTASAR GRACIÁN
Never lead against a hitter unless you can outhit him.ERNEST HEMINGWAY, in a 1950 New Yorker profile
Hemingway was fond of using boxing metaphors to describe events in his life. In the New Yorker profile, writer Lillian Ross described yet another one that occurred after Hemingway signed a book contract with publisher Charles Scribner. Hemingway put down the pen, rose from the couch, and said, “Never ran as no genius, but I’ll defend the title against all the young new ones.” Assuming a boxing crouch, he then jabbed at the air a few times as he offered his concluding remark: “Never let them hit you solid.”
Never try to take a fortified hill,
especially if the army on top is bigger than your own.WILLIAM HEWLETT, Hewlett-Packard cofounder
A 1992 New York Times article quoted Hewlett as offering this rationale for HP’s decision to avoid direct competition with IBM in the manufacturing of mainframe computers.
Never look for a worm in the apple of your eye.LANGSTON HUGHES
Never insult an alligator until after you’ve crossed the river.CORDELL HULL
Hull was America’s longest-tenured secretary of state, serving from 1934 to 1944. He may have been inspired by an African proverb: “Never test the depth of water with both feet.”
Never give a man a dollar’s worth of blame<
br />
without a dime’s worth of praise.L. P. HUNT, U.S. Marine Corps colonel, writing in 1937
Never point a gun at anybody unless you mean business,
and not then if the “business” can be avoided.E. H. KREPS
These days, an admonition like this is considered metaphorical, meaning, “Never make a threat unless you’re willing to back it up.” But when Kreps, a gun safety expert, wrote this in a 1917 article in Fur News, he meant it literally. He added two corollaries:Never let another person point a gun at you, even though you are both sure the gun is not loaded. And never let anybody point a gun at somebody else unless you know he means to shoot him and you feel perfectly sure that he is justified.
Never sell the bear’s skin until you have killed the beast.JEAN DE LA FONTAINE, in his Fables (1668)
La Fontaine, the most famous French poet of his era, also wrote fables in the manner of Aesop and the ancient authors of the Panchatantra. The meaning of this saying is similar to the one about not counting chickens before they are hatched, described earlier. In Further Fables for Our Time (1956), James Thurber contributed a modern version: “Never serve a rabbit stew before you catch the rabbit.”