We often hear those wise old sayings handed down from generation to generation, but some of them are just plain stupid. Seriously, I went through a list of them and picked out 10 “wise old sayings” that are actually pretty dumb and some cases flat out wrong! And in honor of Valentine’s Day, I made sure to pick some love-related “wisdom” for de-pooping.
1. A penny saved is a penny earned
Huh? Are you saying that if I am walking down the street, see a penny, pick it up, and then save it, then I’ve earned it? This should be more like a penny saved is a penny saved.
2. You Can’t Have Your Cake and Eat It Too
This one makes no sense at all. I have a cake, then I eat it. Simple as that. But to be fair, I looked it up and it seems that a better translation from the Old English would be “You can’t eat your cake and have it too.” Makes more sense. Let’s change it.
3. You can’t be a true winner until you have lost
This sounds like some loser made this up. Or I can imagine some BS finance guru using this one to explain why it’s actually a good thing that they failed while following their advice. Because, hey, failing makes you a true winner.
4. All’s Well that End’s well
Let me replace it with another one: the ends justify the means. Just because things end up well doesn’t mean that the method used to achieve that end is OK.
5. Tis Better to Have Loved and Lost Than Never to Have Loved At All
Love stinks. Love is painful. But love is grand. With all due respect to Tennyson who wrote this line in memoriam to his friend, sometimes it might be better to never have loved at all. Theoretically, of course.
6. Absence makes the heart grow fonder
Yes, it makes me appreciate my new woman all the much more.
7. You can’t buy love.
Yes, you can. Ask Hugh Hefner.
8. Good things come to those wait
So, I should sit on my rear end waiting for something to come to me? I prefer going after what I want rather than waiting for it to come to me.
9. Everything happens for a reason
Yep, there’s a reason for everything. It’s called a “cause”.
10. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery
This one seriously makes me want to vomit. I literally have a physical reaction when people tell me this. Like that guy who ripped off one of my blog posts and put it on his blog who when I called him on it, replied, “hey, man, I thought you’d be flattered.”
Flattered, slimeball? Jeez, I guess I should be thanking you for ripping off my hard work.
Try ready to call my lawyer to sue your ass. Come up with your own stuff.
New blog post: 10 Wise Old Sayings That Are Stupid http://bit.ly/ajMxNy
“A penny saved is a penny earned” is a popular misquote. The real saying, from Poor Richard's Almanac is:
“A penny saved is two pence dear; A pin a day's a groat a year.”
A penny saved is two pennies earned. I'll take 100% ROI any day of the week and twice on Sunday. No idea why it gets quoted the way most people seem to know it. Maybe people don't know that “pence” is a plural form of “penny.” I won't nitpick the rest of your list, but that one's a pet peeve of mine.
Thanks for clearing that up. I think the misquote may have to do with the fact that most people have no idea what a groat is (an old English silver coin worth 4 pennies, if anyone's curious).
My personal pet peeve is the “consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds” misquote of “a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds.”
Thanks again.
10 Wise Old Sayings That Are Stupid http://ff.im/-fR8KO
Just discovered this blog and actually in some cultures it is considered you will get lucky if you step in the poop, of course not on purpose but accidentally.
Just discovered this blog and actually in some cultures it is considered you will get lucky if you step in the poop, of course not on purpose but accidentally.
Thanks for dropping by. Hope you are enjoying the blog. Very interesting. I'd be interested to know how long it takes people in those cultures to wipe the poop off, or if they leave it there to continue the luck.
@michelfortin Thanks for the retweet: re: 10 wise old sayings that are stupid http://ow.ly/17nx8
Thanks for dropping by. Hope you are enjoying the blog. Very interesting. I'd be interested to know how long it takes people in those cultures to wipe the poop off, or if they leave it there to continue the luck.
Great Read > 10 Wise Old Sayings That Are Stupid ~ http://bit.ly/b6ykIH via @carlon
Needed this>> RT @SusanLorelei: Great Read > 10 Wise Old Sayings That Are Stupid ~ http://bit.ly/b6ykIH via @carlon
@HDonoho Great Read > 10 Wise Old Sayings That Are Stupid ~ http://bit.ly/b6ykIH via @carlon @SusanLorelei
@Andjelija @SusanLorelei @MelodyUBV @HDonoho: Thx for the retweet > 10 Wise Old Sayings That Are Stupid ~ http://bit.ly/b6ykIH
Hi, I’m a Chinese translator. I found your blog so interesting and translated into Chinese. Then put the translation on my blog. Am I ripping off your hard work? If it is, I will delete it from my blog. You can see my translation here:http://www.lintao.info/?p=34002
Alex,
Thank you for the translation. I am OK with you translating my work since you put a link to my original post in your blog. As long as you attribute the original content to me, I am usually OK with translations.
Unfortunately, when I learned Chinese I did not learn the new characters (only “traditional characters”) . So, I might not be able to read your translation very well. Maybe, I’ll study Chinese again.
But I do have a Chinese name: 何智洋
Glad you’re enjoying the blog and taking the time to translate my work.
Carlon or 智洋，
Your blog is quite interesting and I love it very much. That’s why I’d like to translate some of your articles and introduce to my Chinese friends. I bet many Chinese will love your blog.
Thanks you for the kind words on my blog. Then you certainly have my permission to translate more articles into Chinese in the future. Just put a link back to the original post.
And let me know if you do again. I’d love to see it (and practice my Chinese:)
I would love more Chinese readers and hope they enjoy the blog.
Oh my yes carlon. Absolutely stupid. The one i hear OFTEN and recently is EVERYTHING HAPPENS FOR A REASON… as if somehow the cosmos maneuvered your life in such as way as to have you fail at some task. IT has a reason..and its not your idiocy, lack of application or sheer mindlessness that caused your failure…. ive had this one one time too many.
Coins have been collected since ancient times. It is used by millions of people for payment or trade, and has been striked using very precious metals like gold and silver. Now the use of gold and silver coins is not tied down to only trading and collecting. It is also used as financial stabilizers by many investors. How can coins stabilize one’s finance. Dollar value has decreased to the point where other countries would not hold on to it for trade. Inflation causes prices to rise up and decreases the number of items that can be bought with small amount of money. Silver and gold coins have been going the opposite way. They are maintaining their high value over weight. When precious metals decrease in price, it is usually a cue to buy more. Hoarding is very rampant when paper currency shows no progress. Many countries are buying gold to remove their worries of loosing profits. But with micro investors, how can they do the same with gold.
These are really the great thoughts forever. And I am really the great follower of all the quotes. Among them, some are really very special like, “You can’t buy love.” Because of this one is a such a best of feelings and it’s really the universal truth.
it probably helps to understand the true meaning of a saying in its historical and social context, before devaluating it. but since you want to be critical and funny at the same time, you probably win in some weird insubstantial way.
[...] you go any further, in order that you do not end up paying a fine and having to pay for a licence.Most people will have heard the old saying “give a man a fish, and he’ll feed himself for a day;…good saying, demonstrating how fishing can be more than just a hobby, and can have a real practical [...]
very funny stuff, mate……
This is the post that made me want to subscribe to your blog.
You are absolutely hilarious and so honest as well.
Keep up to great work
I have to nitpick on your #2 saying here. (You Can’t Have Your Cake and Eat It Too)
The modern form of the phrase (have AND eat) is semantically and logically identical to the colloquial form (eat AND have). While the older form may be slightly easier to interpret, this results only because we have a common mistaken subconscious assumption that something occurring at the beginning of a sentence must exist temporally before something occurring later in the same sentence.
In other words, we subconsciously think (as we read a sentence from left-to-right) that what we read first must have happened (or existed) earlier in time, and what we read last must have happened (or existed) later in time. Nevertheless, there is actually no reference to time in the phrase. It does not say “have AND THEN eat”, it just says “have AND eat”. If it did in fact say “have AND THEN eat” it would of course be semantically different, and logically incorrect, and then you would have a legitimate basis for disliking the saying.
I was also somewhat confused by this saying earlier in life before I realized the mistaken temporal assumption I was making. Since then I’ve realized there is nothing wrong with the phrase; I was simply misinterpreting it. In the end, if you eat your cake, you will no longer have it. It’s as simple as that. The order in which you say it makes no difference. Along the same lines, a “sergeant major” is just a “major sergeant”, and an “attorney general” is just a “general attorney”. We use one form over the other only because it sounds fancier, not because it means anything different.
I also have to disagree with your interpretations of #6 (Absence makes the heart grow fonder) and #7 (You can’t buy love). Unless you’re just being facetious with the whole article, I don’t know why you would disagree with #6. It is a truism with human beings that being separated from someone we care about makes us miss them and appreciate them all the more when reunited (if we ever cared about them in the first place). You seem to be interpreting the phrase only from the standpoint of it being used as a false excuse for separation, instead of it being an observation of human nature when separated by circumstance.
As for #7, the phrase is not “You can’t buy simulated affection and/or companionship”. Those things are most certainly attainable through the application of cash. However you’ll need to come up with a much better example than Hugh Hefner’s temporary girlfriends to disprove the adage that you cannot buy genuine USDA Grade A “love”. The phrase implies that you cannot create sincere emotions with money, which as far as I can tell is absolutely correct.
I would have to agree at least partially with the rest of your interpretations. The other sayings have either been warped by time and bad translations or are simply pointless platitudes that don’t actually mean anything.
Happy Holidays
(You say you like criticism, so here is my gift to you. Enjoy!)
Thanks for the gift!
To #6…ever heard the phrase “out of sight, out of mind”? Just saying that it happens.
The point of the article is that these “wise sayings” are indeed warped by time and mistranslated and in fact some are used in ways that the original authors no longer intended. But we say them anyway..
How about this one…….. “it takes one to know one”
I always hated that expression. Just because your a moron and someone points it out simply means your not the first moron they have bumped into.
10 wise old saying that are stupid.. http://t.co/lqjKeLit