Life – a user's manual Part II - Boksidan

There are many more proverbs in the annex, with clear allusions to ancient agricultural society. And
according to a number of interviewed persons 4 , few of these works today (table 4 in the Swedish version of
this book). Of the 20 selected from the annex, only two was considered to be working by all the
interviewees. The fact that all respondents in only one of the 20 cases did the same interpretation, points in
the same direction. In other cases, they stated a number of different interpretations including "do not know".
Not even when I chose proverb that I heard often and asked three persons 5 with a similar background about
their interpretation, our interpretations agree in meaning in more than a third of the cases (table 5 in the
Swedish version). Although the participants also have heard many of the proverbs previously (all had heard
74 of the in total 84). It clearly shows how great the risk of being misunderstood by using proverbs and
hence the problems with using them.
And we probaly need proverbs less today than before. Knowledge mediated in single sentences was
probably more needed at a time when most people only went to school for six years. Nor could learn more
by reading books because the availability of books was very limited. In addition, they could not learn
anything by traveling or see cautionary tales at the movies or TV. Since the first one was very unusual and
that the latter two were impossible.
Though it may establish new proverbs that are better suited for today's society. A source of new proverb
could be advertising slogans that remain even after the respective advertising campaign is long since
forgotten. That may be the case with, for example (which works very much better in Swedish):
Also wine fixes Chlorine.
See on your shoes, others do.
You are what you eat.
Other sayings perhaps are created by television personalities. Such sentences that originally were spread
through television programs, are similar proverbs in that they are used by many people in different parts of
the country. But for the intended effect to be present it is require that the audience knows the original sketch
or preferably have seen it. The latter suggests that it is more of a mass-media version of local expressions
that are just scattered among the people who are related to the expression's origin.
4.
5.
Five men and one woman (36, 40, 44, 45, 45 and 47 years) living in Stockholm were asked to give me an
interpretation without that any of the others were present. And they were asked if they thought the saying
was usable today. I.e. that those who heard the saying would interpret it in the way that each interviewee
thought was correct.
Three men in my age that I know well and who know each other, were asked one at a time without
anyone else present if they have heard the saying, and they were asked to give me a explanation.
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