In a recent post on the SDMB I said, “If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging,” and called that an aphorism. I asked my GF, who is a professional editor, if I got that right. She thought adage might be a better fit but either worked and not worth fussing about.
I agree it is not really important but I went down a rabbit hole anyway trying to sort it out and got more confused (should have taken my own advice). So, I figured if any internet community could shed light on this it is the people here.
Mods: I hope this is ok for FQ but if not, feel free to move. There is an IMHO aspect to this I think.
I kid you not, Google “aphorism” and every one of those words is listed as a synonym.
Since I delivered a “fact,” here’s my smart-ass approach: the word you think is the most pretentious sounding gets attributed to the author you think is the biggest snot. And vice versa.
I think I’ll back off a skosh – Google says those words are “similar,” then includes “motto” in the bunch, which I would say isn’t similar. Another example: “Aphorisms are short, pithy statements that capture some accepted bit of wisdom, usually in a metaphor” (bolding mine).
I see where this is going and I need to bail out for a spell while I tend to my K9s. I shall return, hopefully after a dozen other Dopers have had a go.
I think the right word matters and I am not alone in thinking so:
The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter. ’tis the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.
An “idiom” is a (usually short) phrase in a language that has taken on a meaning distinct from the dictionary definitions(s) of the constituent words. It’s the sort of thing that confuses new learners of the language because even knowing what all the words mean tells you very little about what the phrase means.
A simple example might be “knock it out of the park” to mean “have a great success.” “Yeah, no” is another idiom that takes two or three sentences to unpack and explain.
As to the distinctions between aphorism, adage, proverb, epigram, or maxim that gets much tougher and I’ll leave that to my betters. My late first wife could have taken a good shot at it. But alas, I can’t ask her. Or more accurately, I can ask but I can’t hear her answer.
Right. An expression like “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step” might have a deep and subtle meaning, and you might need to take some liberties in translation like precisely what unit you use for long journeys, or what number a culture uses for large numbers, but it still translates pretty directly into any human culture, and even if you know that the word used for “mile” in the original language is actually only around 800 yards, and that the original had ten thousand of them, or whatever, it doesn’t change the meaning of the expression. That expression might be an “adage”, or a “proverb”, or a “saying”, but it’s definitely not an idiom.
Rather than synonyms I’d mentally arrange aphorism, adage, proverb, and epigram into a Venn diagram. They overlap but do not coincide. Idiom is off on its own island. I’m going to ignore it.
The other four have a patina of age. Adages and proverbs are almost never newly created. Their distinction lies in their expression. An adage is more concrete, a proverb more metaphorical. “A penny saved is a penny earned” is an adage. “A rolling stone gathers no moss” is a proverb. An aphorism is a literary adage or proverb, written by someone famous. Heraclitus: “It is not possible to step into the same river twice.”
Epigram has a definition: “An epigram is a brief, interesting, memorable, and sometimes surprising or satirical statement.” It’s been a literary device since the Greeks. Oscar Wilde was the master of epigrams. “I can resist everything except temptation.” He killed the field. Anyone who tries to utter an epigram today is a parody of Wilde. Epigrams are usually witty, but wit does not always produce an epigram, nor do jokes. Dorothy Parker: “Wit has truth in it; wise-cracking is simply calisthenics with words.”
A more modern category is Laws. Murphy’s Law: “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong” or our own Gaudere’s Law: “Any post made to point out a spelling or grammar error will invariably contain a spelling or grammar error” are adages since they are direct statements but don’t have the weight of age.
Humanity will never stop making pithy quotable comments. I think, therefore I have to post on the internet. Or, I don’t think, therefore I have to post on the internet.
Maxims apparently are adages that include a rule: “Actions speak louder than words.” Dictionary.com says the proper synonym is proverb, and I can see the metaphor in that, but I’d put their examples alongside adages. That’s a word that “could be confused with” maxim, but so are aphorism, apothegm, and axiom. (Axiom?)
Apothegm is a great word. The “g” is silent. “A short, pithy, instructive saying; a terse remark or aphorism.” (They misspell it apophthegm on the same page, except that turns out to be an alternate spelling with the same pronunciation. How fake Greek can one get?)
Ordinary mortals get creative, too, hence proverbs. Also saws (a sententious saying; maxim; proverb) and sayings (something said, especially a proverb or apothegm). Daffodil is a word related to saw, sayeth the dictionary. Not in my vocabulary.
The circularity of these definitions should be instructive. People write and speak memorably when they strive for short sentences. The literary world is filled with as much pith as a forest. That may or may not be a platitude (a flat, dull, or trite remark, especially one uttered as if it were fresh or profound.) Over time, minds automatically gather glittery sentences the way hands gather glittery rocks, sort them into like bundles and give the bundles names. Time and minds vary, so the bundles meant to distinguish often end up with similar glitters. Without a Linnaeus as an overmind we have to settle for overlapping circles.
Thanks for the response and effort at research (truly). I think you have added a worthwhile bit to our collective knowledge (or made what is there more understandable which, in my view, is at least as important).
Aristotle defines a maxim as “a statement, not however concerning particulars, as, for instance, what sort of a man Iphicrates was, but general; it does not even deal with all general things, as for instance that the straight is the opposite of the crooked, but with the objects of human actions, and with what should be chosen or avoided with reference to them.”
As far as aphorisms are concerned, couldn’t we add that they boil down a deep and complex thought to just a few simple words ? They seem like that to me, and your example would fit.
