Bombastic Proverbs #1

Over three decades ago, I came upon an activity that I incorporated into the curriculum for my Advanced Reading class for college-bound juniors and seniors. Ten familiar proverbs had been re-written into lengthy sentences utilizing large words. My inclusion of the activity for my students was designed to show them 1) how NOT to write, and 2) as a vocabulary development exercise. A side benefit was teaching inference, for after defining several words in each sentence, they often could infer the entire proverb.

When I introduced the exercise, the students loved it, and many related how they had completed the assignment around the evening supper table with the entire family joining in and having a ball. And after we ran out of the sentences, the students sent me home with homework -- to create more of them, often using proverbs they suggested -- which I did until we had a bank of 75 proverbs to work with. Decades later, my students no longer seemed to relish the assignments anymore, because (as we determined) their parents were not using the proverbs and hence the students were unfamiliar with them.

Anyway, I came upon the handout recently as I sifted through some of my old teaching materials, and here, in my eighth year of retirement, I offer several to you for (hopefully) your enjoyment.



Sample: Do not utter loud and passionate vocal expressions because of the accidental overturning of a receptacle containing a whitish, opaque, nutritive fluid.

Answer: Don’t cry over spilt milk.




1. Compounds of Hydrogen and Oxygen, in the proportion of 2 to 1, that are without visible movement, tend to flow with profundity.
   
   
2. One should abstain from unnecessarily postponing to a future juncture that which one can effect immediately.
   
   
3. It is not advantageous to place the sum total of your backyard collection into the same wicker receptacle.
   
   
4. A superfluity of culinary experts has a tendency to disarrange the preparation of the beef extract.
   
   
5. Never calculate the possible number of your juvenile poultry until the usual period of incubation has been fully accomplished.
   
   
6. Each mass of vapory collections suspended in the firmament has an interior decoration of metallic hue.
   
   
7. The flying phenomenon of the ethereal kingdom, of a kindred kind, come into association gregariously.
   
   
8. Deviation from the ordinary humdrum of common routine of existence is that which provides zest to Man’s cycle of existence.
   
   
9. An inhabitant of an aviary recumbent in one’s chiral appendage is equivalent to a duo in the foliage.
   
   
10. 10. A baste administered within the constraints of chronology ofttimes precludes the necessity of mandating ninefold at a future juncture.

Answer key:

1. Still waters run deep.
2. Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today.
3. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.
4. Too many cooks spoil the broth.
5. Don’t count your chickens before they are hatched.
6. Every cloud has a silver lining.
7. Birds of a feather flock together.
8. Variety is the spice of life.
9. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
10. A stitch in time saves nine.