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An anti-proverb or a perverb is the transformation of a standard proverb for humorous effect.[1] Paremiologist Wolfgang Mieder defines them as "parodied, twisted, or fractured proverbs that reveal humorous or satirical speech play with traditional proverbial wisdom".[2] Anti-proverbs are ancient, Aristophanes having used one in his play Peace, substituting κώẟων "bell" (in the unique compound "bellfinch") for κύων "bitch, female dog", twisting the standard and familiar "The hasty bitch gives birth to blind" to "The hasty bellfinch gives birth to blind".[3]
Anti-proverbs have also been defined as "an allusive distortion, parody, misapplication, or unexpected contextualization of a recognized proverb, usually for comic or satiric effect".[4] To have full effect, an anti-proverb must be based on a known proverb. For example, "If at first you don't succeed, quit" is only funny if the hearer knows the standard proverb "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again". Anti-proverbs are used commonly in advertising, such as "Put your burger where your mouth is" from Red Robin.[5] Anti-proverbs are also common on T-shirts, such as "Taste makes waist" and "If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you".
Standard proverbs are essentially defined phrases, well known to many people, as e. g. Don't bite the hand that feeds you. When this sequence is deliberately slightly changed ("Don't bite the hand that looks dirty") it becomes an anti-proverb. The relationship between anti-proverbs and proverbs, and a study of how much a proverb can be changed before the resulting anti-proverb is no longer seen as proverbial, are still open topics for research.[6]
- ^ Tuzcu, Öznur. 2018. Anti-Proverb as a Type of Intertextual Joke. Humanitas - International Journal of Social Sciences 12:34-48.
- ^ p. 28, Mieder, Wolfgang. 2004. Proverbs: A Handbook. (Greenwood Folklore Handbooks). Greenwood Press.
- ^ p. 4. Alster, Bendt. 1979. An Akkadian and a Greek proverb. A comparative study. Die Welt des Orients 10. 1-5.
- ^ p. xi, Charles Clay Doyle, Wolfgang Mieder, & Fred Shapiro. The Dictionary of Modern Proverbs. New Haven: Yale University Press.
- ^ Wolfgang Mieder and Barbara Mieder, 1977, Journal of Popular Culture, 11:308–319.
- ^ p. 166. Barta, Péter. 2009. Proverbial and Anti-Proverbial Variants of "on ne peut pas avoir le beurre et l'argent du beurre." McKenna, K. J. ed., The proverbial "Pied piper": a festschrift volume of essays in honor of Wolfgang Mieder on the occasion of his sixty-fifth birthday, 155–167. New York: Peter Lang.