Paroemiographer

Meaning: a writer or collector of proverbs.

Usefulness: 1 (I'm considering adding this to my resume. Could also be applied to Twitter, where there are a number of people attempting to find or coin the most applicable proverb of the day.)

Logofascination: 2 (This word gets points just for existing.)

In the wild: On the ever erudite Laudator Temporis Acti, in Proverbs on the Preference for Old Things.

Degrees: 2

Connections: paroemiographer - proverb

Which is used in: G&P, Book the Third, XXXI: How the physician Rondibilis counselleth Panurge. The physician counselleth Panurge on how to cool the stirrings that urge him toward marriage, and mentions the contrary effects of alcohol. I've used this passage before, but it outlines a universal truth:

Bacchus, the god of bibbers, tipplers, and drunkards, is most commonly painted beardless and clad in a woman's habit, as a person altogether effeminate, or like a libbed* eunuch. Wine, nevertheless, taken moderately, worketh quite contrary effects, as is implied by the old proverb, which saith that Venus takes cold when not accompanied with Ceres and Bacchus. This opinion is of great antiquity, as appeareth by the testimony of Diodorus the Sicilian, and confirmed by Pausanias, and universally held amongst the Lampsacians, that Don Priapus was the son of Bacchus and Venus.

*Cotgrave: "bereaved or maimed of his stones"


This post brought to you a day late so that some of it could be written at the Emerging Writer's Festival All-Nighter; it was comforting to see other people spend late nights with their books and devices.