Proverbial

In Competition No. 2850 you were invited to invent proverbs that sound profound but have no meaning.

This was an extremely popular competition, which attracted an enormous entry. It was a pleasure to judge, and cheering, too, to see lots of unfamiliar names in among the regulars.

The best entries contain just the promise of a profound meaning — but frustrate the reader’s attempt to work out exactly what it is. I tried to weed out those submissions (some of them very amusing) that did express a clearly discernible deeper truth, but some may have slipped through the net.

The following competitors deserve an honourable mention: ‘The shallow puddle floods no meadows’ (D.A. Prince); ‘A circular argument cannot be broken’ (Barry Baldwin); ‘People in glass houses should put their kaftans on’ (Tessa Maude); ‘Never play chess with snooker balls’ (Dr J.D. Renwick); ‘Never underestimate big numbers’ (Nigel Grigg); ‘It’s a weak proverb that hasn’t got something to say’ (John O’Byrne); ‘Even Adam and Eve were not forbidden to eat a pickled onion’ (Brian Murdoch); ‘Wit needs no disguise’ (Michael Jones); ‘A cauliflower is a vegetable but a sweet pea is not’ (Alanna Blake).

Lord Chesterfield warned his son that proverbial expressions are ‘the flowers of the rhetoric of the vulgar man’, and that ‘a man of fashion never has recourse to proverbs and vulgar aphorisms’. But perhaps he would have changed his mind if he’d seen the glorious nuggets of folk wisdom you’ve come up with.

The winners below are rewarded with £4 for each proverb printed. Congratulations, all round.

A wise snake never attempts to play hopscotch.
It is better to scalp a cat than to swallow a lawnmower.
No living creature is ever too old to age.
It’s a short road that has no length.