Neverisms

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: