As the barking of the mad dogs of Mechelen recedes, Hispanic PR Newswire mutters in our ear that its market is suffering from a severe case of the proverbs:
Often, excuses come disguised as popular wisdom… Unfortunately, the sayings nearest and dearest to us, those passed on through generations, have also culturally conditioned us to accept mediocrity as the norm… “Seemingly innocent sayings significantly influence our perception of our ability to effect change in our lives,” says Dr. Camilo Cruz author of La Vaca (Once Upon a Cow) [
], a new book that reveals specific strategies for eliminating excuses, fears, and false beliefs that keep people from getting what they really want out of life… Five sayings to avoid:
— You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.
— Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.
— The devil you know is better than the angel you don’t.
— It’s not whether you win or lose; it’s playing the game that counts.
— Poor, but honest.
Irrelevant quote: It seems that the Greebos thought that Knitting and Crochet Guild were “violating their heroes.” Though quite how a little old woman knitting a sweater can “violate” a black boilersuit bedecked, mask wearing freak is beyond me. As a result some little old ladies in the suburbs got bombarded with threatening emails. One woman even had to put a block on her phone due to threatening phone calls.
With all due respect to Mr Cruz and the psycho-druids who doctored him, proverbs only become a problem when you forget to update them, when the Angel of History focuses on the middle distance and steps in the dogshit. I don’t know if Hispanics are more prone to this than Anglos (or greebos, or zeebos), but, although on other pages he’s still stuck on the mediaeval church’s Bush-bush-heath-heathen-Satan mantra, T Rex does have some useful new gobbets of folk wisdom for us all here:
- Don’t become a suicide bomber.
- Walk more and crawl less.
- Don’t look a gift horse in the ass.
- Don’t poop on the floor in the hallway.
- Never kidnap monkeys from Africa.
- Don’t believe anything Uncle Mike (or any other men in your family other than your father and maybe your paternal grandfather) says.
- Never take graduate level statistics.
- Don’t buy pork bellies.
- Don’t pick your boogers.
- Don’t be stupid.
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