Dictionary of Authentic American Proverbs

The Dictionary of Authentic American Proverbs is the culmination of 50 years of Wolfgang Mieder's proverb scholarship. He has published numerous works on proverbs in North America, but previous works did not draw a distinction between American (US) and British proverbs in use in North America. In the case of this dictionary, Mieder follows scholarly principles in tracking down first occurrences of proverbs that were coined in North America (and in a few cases, Canada, p. 4) from the seventeenth to the twenty-first century.The nearly 40-page introduction covers topics of the origin of proverbs in North America, loan proverbs of North American origin, obvious American (US) proverbs, structure and variants, and anti-proverbs, as well as themes and American (US) values. It is a tour de force of Mieder's proverb research acumen.With any inquiry into authenticity, the question arises about how those not meeting the cut are classified. What does it mean for the proverbs that Mieder evaluates to be found to be “inauthentic”? Are they designated as “fakelore”? No, in most cases, those that did not make the cut did so because of a different origin. As noted earlier, there are numerous proverbs of British origin in use in North America.Mieder does not dwell on the details of the scientific approaches he has taken to bring together this collection of proverbs. He started years ago with LexisNexis full-text searches and expanded into other resources, thereby taking the discipline of proverb research far beyond what Archer Taylor had envisioned in terms of proverb research excellence. The result is this superb collection, which demonstrates the wealth of proverbial riches predominantly from the United States.Even with the wealth of these proverbs, Mieder is reticent to make sweeping generalizations about an American or national character from the collection of US proverbs. For one thing, his collection of proverbs does not contain enough data to make such generalizations. Moreover, the proverbs were coined over the course of centuries, which also limits the ability to make sweeping statements. Still, Mieder does point out some of the most significant themes and tendencies from the collection.One topic I would have liked Mieder to unpack a bit more is the idea of a paremiological minimum for American proverbs, that is, the idea that a researcher may suggest a basic set of proverbs for those learning English as a foreign language to gain a degree of cultural competency. I believe it would have fit well with this proverb collection.The dictionary organizes the proverbs alphabetically by a keyword, which it indicates through the use of bold font. This may or may not be the first word in the proverb. For example: “There is no friend like a dollar” (p. 74). Each entry includes the year of first occurrence and often provides a brief explanatory note.The Dictionary of Authentic American Proverbs will be of interest to folklorists, anthropologists, linguists, and literary scholars. Language used in the preface is easily accessible for the general public, and the topic would be of interest to a broader readership. The lists are also easy to understand and should serve as a ready resource to the wealth of authentic American (US) proverbs.My own proverb research focuses on proverb use in Kazakhstan, a society with an emphasis in maintaining its rich oral traditions. In contrast, I often have conversations with fellow US citizens who find it challenging to call to mind English proverbs. Mieder's collection of 1,500 proverbs from the United States, as well as his section discussing loan proverbs from English, is a welcome corrective. I will keep this book handy to show off the wealth of proverbs from the United States.

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