说曹操，曹操就到 Speak of Cao Cao and he arrives

October 18, 2021 12:50 PM

“Speak of the devil and he appears” and parallel idioms in Chinese and English.
Things Confucius Never Said. "When you are about to make a major decision, your family or friends may cite Confucius and advise you to act prudently and 'think three times before acting.'" In fact, Confucius said to stop waffling and that thinking twice is enough.

More articles on idioms at World of Chinese include exceptions to the rule that nearly all Chinese chengyu (成语), or idiomatic expressions, are made up of four characters. (found via Sixth Tone).

posted by spamandkimchi (27 comments total)

According to The Analects, a citizen asked Confucius his opinion about the concept of “repaying evil with good,” and Confucius expressed his opposition. The sage’s full reply went: “If you return good for evil, what do you return for good? One should return injustice with justice, and repay good with good (以德报怨，何以报德? 以直报怨，以德报德).”

It's funny that commonplace sayings that Confucius disagreed with got attributed to him anyway. The perils of fame, I guess?
posted by clawsoon at 1:02 PM on October 18, 2021

But... it looks like they wanted Cao Cao to appear! That's the very opposit of the the "Speak of the Devil" idiom....

My favorite thing that Confucius said (or is recorded in the Analects, at least) is, when he asked the definition of filial piety said "to give one's parents no cause for anxiety save illness."
posted by GenjiandProust at 1:06 PM on October 18, 2021 [3 favorites]

One thing I learned when I started into Confucian philosophy is that it's...philosophy. There are arguments supporting claims that Confucian philosophers make. It's most certainly not a collection of nice sounding sayings.

It's funny that commonplace sayings that Confucius disagreed with got attributed to him anyway.

Ancient scholars also liked to put words in Confucius' mouth. Zhuangzi in particular likes to use a fictionalized Confucius as a mask and a foil.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 1:20 PM on October 18, 2021 [5 favorites]

Next you'll tell me he didn't actually say that a boy and girl who go camping together have naughty intent.
posted by acb at 2:28 PM on October 18, 2021 [3 favorites]

Generally, I find that if some statement on a web page purports to be a quote from a famous person, the claim is not to be believed without some research. When the famous person is as long-dead as Confucius, and their writings as obscure to most people as the Analects are to the typical modern Western reader, I just assume the quote is bogus. Probably the equivalent of Fake Buddha Quotes for Confucius is only in Chinese.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 2:30 PM on October 18, 2021 [3 favorites]

I would actually really love a collection of idioms that tend to scan well by primary Chinese speakers or just lend themselves to being translated easy. My understanding is that idiomatic English is incredibly painful, especially with our love of random sport idiom. One that came up in this list was “to gild the Lily” which makes so much less sense than the original expression (which nobody uses).
posted by a robot made out of meat at 2:57 PM on October 18, 2021 [2 favorites]

it looks like they wanted Cao Cao to appear!

True enough, but Cao Cao is generally portrayed as a villain in Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and even more so in Chinese opera. So it's really not far off.
posted by zompist at 3:06 PM on October 18, 2021 [3 favorites]

I dunno, "gilding the lily" makes perfect sense to me, but what is so easy about a piece of cake? And anyone who thinks taking candy from a baby is easy hasn't met many babies....
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:09 PM on October 18, 2021

Cao Cao just had a bad publicist (and lost)!
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:09 PM on October 18, 2021 [2 favorites]

Aardvark Cheeselog: "Generally, I find that if some statement on a web page purports to be a quote from a famous person, the claim is not to be believed without some research. "

This general assertion is particularly valid when the quote is alleged to be from Mark Twain.
posted by chavenet at 3:23 PM on October 18, 2021 [5 favorites]

Or Voltaire, or Wilde.
posted by acb at 3:28 PM on October 18, 2021 [5 favorites]

As for "Chinese" quotes, the two I hear most often are the old canard that "the Chinese word for 'crisis' is a combination of the characters for 'danger' and 'opportunity'" and the not-actually-an "ancient Chinese curse, 'may you live in interesting times.'"
posted by chavenet at 3:31 PM on October 18, 2021 [1 favorite]

>the claim is not to be believed without some research.

>particularly valid when the quote is alleged to be from Mark Twain.

>Or Voltaire, or Wilde.

Einstein and Picasso. Absolutely any god damn foolishness can be attributed to either Einstein or Picasso, and no one will ever question it.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 5:20 PM on October 18, 2021 [2 favorites]

As Twain said: 75% of the time, a quip by Wilde will be attributed to Confucius, when, in fact, it was by Dorothy Parker.
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:35 PM on October 18, 2021 [13 favorites]

“I really didn’t say everything I said" -- Yogi Berra
posted by sjswitzer at 5:39 PM on October 18, 2021 [4 favorites]

OMG, Yogi Berra was Confucius!
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:48 PM on October 18, 2021 [1 favorite]

the comments are very funny to me, as a muslim, where the problem of what the Prophet did or did not say got so bad, at least two people made their mark in history 200-300~ years later just by virtue of doing the hard work of actually going around investigating the quality of the transmission chain. i mean, the problem hasn't really improved, but we got a lot of books out of it!
posted by cendawanita at 12:13 AM on October 19, 2021 [10 favorites]

Next you'll tell me he didn't actually say that a boy and girl who go camping together have naughty intent.

My favorite thing that Confucius never said is ... Man who fart in Church sit in own Phew.

Plus my favorite Berraism is : When you come to a fork in the road, take it.
posted by indianbadger1 at 8:02 AM on October 19, 2021

'To gild the lily' ~= 锦上添花 -- to add flowers to a piece of brocade.

Now that I'm tutoring my daughter Chinese every day, we are constantly trying to find the best Chinese/English idiom pairs, so this post comes in quite handy!

Also nowadays Confucius may not be the most misattributed writer, Lu Xun might be.
posted by of strange foe at 8:25 AM on October 19, 2021

百闻不如一见。
Bâi wén bù rú yí jiàn.
Seeing is believing. (Seeing once is worth hearing a hundred times.)

冰冻三尺非一日之寒。
Bïng dòng sän chî fëi yí rì zhï hán.
Rome was not built in a day. (One day of cold can’t form three feet of ice.)

大树底下好乘凉。
Dà shù dî xià hâo chéngliáng.
Good shade is found under a big tree.
posted by Atom Collection at 12:30 PM on October 19, 2021 [3 favorites]

“Since snakes do not have feet, judges disqualified the man from the competition.“

I want to read books and books and books’-worth of idioms from around the world across all of time. Language is such glorious silliness and practicality both. This post is solid gold, spamandkimchi. Thank you for sharing it!
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 10:02 PM on October 19, 2021 [1 favorite]

My feeling has always been that parables and sayings and now meme's are useful for getting a point across, especially if you have a cultural connection with your audience, but most of the time giving them extra weight or assigning them "truth" based on who you say said them is folly. Either the idea stands on it's own or not. Pretending that Einstein or Jesus said them is kinda pointless.
posted by cirhosis at 10:17 AM on October 20, 2021

Actually, here's a little collection of 46 authentic mainland Chinese proverbs that I put together back in 2008 when I was living and working there. Hopefully it may be useful or interesting to some. (Sorry about the pinyin tone marks, they didn't copy over properly and I'm afraid I can't be bothered to go through and correct them all.)
posted by Atom Collection at 2:11 PM on October 20, 2021 [4 favorites]

Atom Collection, words to live by! “Ginger is spiciest when it matures.”
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 11:25 PM on October 20, 2021

Atom Collection, words to live by! “Ginger is spiciest when it matures.”

One of my favorites! I frequently quoted it to young students whenever ageism reared its ugly head.
posted by Atom Collection at 11:43 PM on October 20, 2021

I can't decide whether my favourite is 爱屋及乌 àiwū jíwū
Love the crows on a person’s roof or "to add feet to a snake"! Idioms are such a neat window into different cultures/languages - I think some of these were also in Adeline Yen Mah's 10,000 pieces of gold which was just fascinating.
posted by MarianHalcombe at 4:41 AM on October 22, 2021

if you add feet to a snake, doesn't it become a dragon?
posted by WizardOfDocs at 10:20 AM on October 22, 2021