My dad uses that one too. I always wondered if hogs really ate acorns. I’ve heard a couple of versions of it, including “even a blind squirrel gets an acorn once in a while”, which seems to fit real animal behavior a little better. But whenever I say it, I always say “hog”, like my dad.
It occurs to me now that my dad is the aphorism aficionado in the house. I don’t remember my mom using them nearly as frequently.
My mother use to say “going around Robin Hood’s barn,” meaning hashing something to death to get a simple conclusion. I still say “We didn’t have to go around the barn” on occasion.
She also used the expression “It’s (not) a whorehouse of activity here” meaning there was (not) a whole lot going on. The mental image of whores rushing their customers in and out (so to speak) explains it all.
My mother and grandmother have favourite is an old Portuguese saying that I heard constantly through childhood: “Mais vale sol que mal acompanhado”.
It loses the rythm when translated to English, but means more or less “Better off alone than in bad company.” I catch myself using it from time to time these days.
An old saying about why it’s easier to seduce married women than young girls: “nobody misses a slice off a cut loaf.”
[QUOTE=Bayard]
My dad uses that one too. I always wondered if hogs really ate acorns.
[QUOTE]
They do. If it wasn’t for hogs eating acorns, the world wouldn’t have what is assuredly the ham to end all hams, the jamón ibérico de bellota. Mmmmmm… ham.
My Mum used to say that whenever I pulled a face.
At a chess tournament closing ceremony, my mate offered to do the translation from German into English.
Most Englishmen are rubbish at foreign languages, so there was a rumour he would be tested severely.
So I’m listening to a smooth translation by him, when the body language of all the Germans shows something is up. Without hesitation, my friend says ‘like taking coals to Newcastle’ and the Germans start applauding. 
Apparently the original in German was ‘taking owls to Athens’. :eek:
If wishes were horses, and beggars could ride…
And when you assume, you make an ‘ass’ out ‘you’ and ‘me’.
And acorns are a staple in a hog’s diet. That snout of theirs is designed for digging through the dirt for nuts and mushrooms to eat. They actually use pigs to hunt for truffles, although the beasts eat them half the time, before the intrepid mycologist can bag them up.
Damn! A minute too slow. 
Or similarly:
“Sticking feathers in your but does not make you a chicken!”
Speaking of coal to Newcastle, wasn’t there some guy who was given deliberately bad advice to do just that, and ended up making a mint off that shipment, because his shipment arrived in the middle of a miner’s strike?
Some other aphorisms:
“I’ll be a monkey’s uncle.” Used to express awe.
“My virgin grandmother!” A somewhat more polite, and more emphatic, way to say “Bullshit!”
If a dog had a square ass, he’d shit bricks.
My contribution courtesy of Grandma:
Tables are for glasses,
Not for children’s… butts.
Slight veer to the right. When the Eagles are in a long yardage situation (3rd and 27, say), my Dad always says, “They’re third and Passyunk.” Passyunk Ave. being about 2 miles from the Vet or Linc.
That’s life in the big city…you can crawl into a real hurtbag.
“He’s so lucky, he could shit in a swinging bucket.”
Last summer we had a mini-drought kinda thing going on. When it finally rained, I said (to everyone), “Boy, we sure needed that rain”. Then, every time it rained I kept repeating that phrase.
The past few weeks it has been raining, causing concern for flooding. My son said to me, “Boy we sure needed this rain”. Smartass kid. . .wonder where he got it?
Not an aphorism or a proverb but it happened to come up at work today (SDMB synchronicity). A guy once referred to someone as a “black catter” using the phrase as if everyone knew what it meant. I had never heard it and asked him what it meant.
He explained:
That guy is the kind of person who, if you have a big house, his house is bigger. If you have a fast car, his car is faster. If you have a black cat, his cat is blacker.
It is far from common Aussie slang but I meet the odd person who knows it.
I just love it for it’s useful nature. Someone tries to big note and you can just shake your head and say, “What a black catter!”
One of my professors in college would use this one…
You’re as useless as tits on a boar hog.
Speaking of Aussies: term for a man taking a pee: Shaking hands with the unemployed.
“Close only counts in horseshoes and handgrenades.” I grew up hearing this.
I haven’t heard that one in a long time. I love it! I think “boar hog” instead of just “boar” adds a great sound to it.
One I heard from a coworker years ago and immediately added to my repetoire: “People in hell want icewater.” I rarely hear it, but it comes in so handy when someone makes an unreasonable request. “The users want single sign-on, biometric authentication!” “Well, people in hell…”