From go to whoa

A READER asked if the common expression for ‘‘from beginning to end’’ is from woe to go or from go to woe. I had never seen it written, only spoken (being a slangy jingle). I thought it should be go to woe, because ‘‘go’’ sounds more like a beginning, while ‘‘woe’’ is the outcome of many bright starts. But No. It’s not woe but whoa, Aussie horsecommands. True Scots would avoid the confusion because they would say from go to Hwoa. Whoa mimics horsenoise, like a hwinny, or Houyhnhnm.

Good riddance

The meaning of whoa had been preserved in hiding within the set phrase, like a fossil in a rock. Set phrases do this, whether slang or not: another reader instanced ‘‘Good riddance’’. The verb to

rid continues in use, but its noun riddance (the act of ridding ) has lapsed except in this phrase. In fact, for whatever reason, nouns ending ance seem vulnerable: quittance, acquittance, affirmance. They are all in abeyance. Admittance is sliding into admission. But watch the posh word ambiance: that one’s in the ascendant. We need the nuances; deliverance is a greater idea than delivery, connoting a salvation coming from outside ourselves, not parcels in the post.

Proverbs

But if you relish the thought of old words lingering on like flies in amber, you need only pick up a book of proverbs. The whole point of proverbs is to preserve the findings of lived experience, to guide us in new lifesituations. To help in time of need, they make themselves memorable, or witty, or paradoxical. And to do this, they keep their maxims short and pithy, minimising words. They use simple, pithy figures of speech. Alliteration: A cat may look at a king. Rhyme: A friend in need is a friend indeed. Or they come in two equal halves:

Penny wise, pound foolish. Or make a pun: Whether life’s worth living depends upon the liver. Or hinge on a vivid image or a metaphor: A rolling stone gathers no moss. There are no flies on him. Naturally, then, proverbs may combine several of these features of heightened speech. They are poetry in embryo.

Flies in amber

Old things and lifeforms survive in proverbs. Long after decimalisation of currencies, we apply outmoded currencies: Take care of the pence and the pounds will take care of themselves. (Of course this one contradicts Penny wise, pound foolish: proverbs won’t always do your thinking for you.) I’ve given up on puddings without forgetting that The proof of the pudding is in the eating. As mad as a hatter is heard long after hatmakers have abandoned using mercurous nitrate. As mad as a March hare makes sense in the southern hemisphere. And if you gathered a goodly bundle of these sayings, you could begin to picture how our ancestors lived in their houses, or went to work, or to market (rather like archaeologists reconstructing a way of life from bones or stones).

George Herbert

One of my favourite poets, George Herbert, didn’t only build great poems out of a single simple metaphor, like The Collar, or The Pulley. In Wit’s Recreation he collected proverbs, surely because he felt they did something similar to his own poems: they summed up large areas of life and choice by a memorable image, albeit anonymous. The collection has been edited in facsimile for the Scolar Press by my colleague Colin Gibson.