Addition in Anglo-American anti-Proverbs about Money

2.1.1 Expanding a proverb at the end

The most frequently used place of addition involves expanding a proverb at the end (for a detailed discussion and additional examples, see also Sections 2.2.4, 2.2.5 and 2.2.6 below). The proverb Money isn’t everything has provided scores of such alterations in our corpus (2a–2c):

1. Money isn’t everything – a certified check will do just as well.

   (Safian 1967: 55)

2. Money isn’t everything; only half.

   (Feibleman 1978: 16)

3. Money isn’t everything – sometimes it isn’t even enough.

   (Safian 1967: 55)

2.1.2 Addition before the original text of a proverb

New words, sometimes even clauses or sentences, may be added not only after the original text of a proverb – as shown in the previous section – but also before it, although in our material this is not as frequent as adding a tail. Consider the examples below (3a–3b), both of which are transformations of the proverb Money talks:

1. The only international language is the one which money talks.

   (Esar 1968: 436)

2. The only international language seems to be the one in which money talks.

   (Prochnow 1958: 245)

2.1.3 Expanding a proverb both at the beginning and the end

Proverbs are also sometimes reformulated into longer statements by expanding a proverb both at the beginning and end (see 4a–6c). Evan Esar (1952: 202) calls such transformations “the sandwich species” (with an original proverb in the middle of it):

1. The man who says, “Money isn’t everything,” probably is in the arrears to his landlady. {Money isn’t everything}

   (Hubbard 1973: 152)

2. Both management and unions agree that time is money. They just can’t agree on how much! {Time is money}

   (Metcalf 1993: 215)

The proverb Money talks has provided numerous transformations for this type of proverb alteration (5a–5d):

1. Every father knows that money talks mostly in the mother tongue.

   (Esar 1968: 403)

2. American money talks in just about every foreign country.

   (McKenzie 1980: 343)

3. An orator complains, “When I talk, nobody listens. When money talks – everybody listens.”

   (Adams 1959: 160)

4. Never let capital lie idle; remember that money talks, but it doesn’t talk in its sleep.

   (Esar 1968: 111)

The following proverb parodies (6a–6c) are also in the form of the sandwich species; however, each of them is postulated as a naive question – thus, once more, presenting a single situation in which the proverb may sound wrong, or doesn’t fit. Such questions might be frequently preceeded by the conjunctions “but”, “how”, or “why” (see also Section 2.2.6):

1. If time is money, why is it that wealthy executives never seem to have a moment to spare? {Time is money}

   (Esar 1968: 105)

2. We know that a fool and his money are soon parted, but how did they ever get together? {A fool and his money are soon parted}

   (McKenzie 1980: 187)

3. If money doesn’t grow on trees, how come the banks have so many branches? {Money doesn’t grow on trees}

   (Metcalf 1993: 19)

2.1.4 Expanding a proverb inside the proverb text

Quite rarely in our material, words or even phrases are put somewhere inside the proverb text (7a–7c):

1. A fool and his father’s money are soon parted. {A fool and his money are soon parted}

   (Esar 1952: 202)

2. A fool and his money can make a lot of trouble before they are parted. {A fool and his money are soon parted}

   (Esar 1968: 825)

3. The love of someone else’s money is the root of all evil. {The love of money is the root of all evil}

   (Esar 1968: 528)

Expanding a proverb inside the proverb text might be combined with addition before the original text of a proverb (8):

1. One man’s money burns a hole in another man’s pocket. {Money burns a hole in the pocket}

   (Esar 1968: 529)

2.2.1 Adding a new sound

The original proverb can be complemented by only one sound (e.g., the “money” from the original text is changed” into the “monkey” in the proverb alteration below):

1. A fool and his monkey are soon parted. {A fool and his money are soon parted}

2. (Margo 1982)

2.2.2 Adding two or more new sounds

Proverbs might be changed by adding two or more sounds to a word (such as “night” added to the “mare” in the following proverb mutation):

1. Money makes the nightmare go. {Money makes the mare go}

2. (New Yorker, June 28, 1956)

Sometimes, entirely new word compositions can be observed in our anti-proverbs, as seen in the anti-proverb below (11) (addition of “matri-” to the “money” creates a new word “matri-money”^[5]):

1. Matri-money is the root of all evil. {Money is the root of all evil}^[6]

2. (Anonymous 1908: 26)

2.2.3 Addition of a new word or a phrase

In a few cases, only one word is added to the original proverb text (12, 13a). A new word (laugh) comes at the end of the original text (12):

1. Money makes a man laugh. {Money makes a man}

2. (John Selden, Table Talk, see Selden and Waters 1899: 142)

A new word (still in 13a) or a phrase (someone else’s in 13b) is inserted inside the proverb text:

1. Time is still money. {Time is money}

   (Liu and Vasselli 1996)

2. The love of someone else’s money is the root of all evil. {The love of money is the root of all evil}

   (Esar 1968: 528)

2.2.4 Addition of a one- or several-clauses-long comment

The largest subgroup of complemented proverbs is characterized by the insertion of a one- or several-clauses-long comment. This addition frequently changes and twists the message of the original proverb into its opposite, as is shown in numerous examples below (14–17):

1. Money doesn’t bring happiness – the man with two million dollars is no happier than the man with a mere one million. {Money doesn’t bring happiness}

2. (Safian 1967: 53)

Sometimes antonyms might be employed in the tails added to original proverb texts (e.g., “everything” and “anything”; see 15 and Ex. 25 below in Section 2.3.2):

1. Money isn’t everything; in fact, after the tax collector gets through, money isn’t anything. {Money isn’t everything}

2. (Esar 1968: 528)

As we see from the examples below, quite often possessing such things as credit cards, diamonds, stocks, bonds, travelers’ cheques, etc., might be at least as important as possessing simply money (16a–16b):

1. Money isn’t everything – there are other things besides money, like stocks, bonds, travelers’ checks, and credit cards.

   (Safian 1967: 55)

2. Money isn’t everything – there’s always diamonds.

   (Esar 1968: 218)

The extended type of proverb variation and parody can be clearly shown through wellerisms. Wellerisms, named for Charles Dickens’ character Samuel Weller, are particularly common in the USA, Great Britain, Ireland, and Germany (see Mieder 1982, 1989: 223–238; Mieder and Kingsbury 1994). This form of folklore is normally made up of three parts: 1) a statement (which often consists of a proverb or proverbial phrase), 2) a speaker who makes this remark, and 3) a phrase that places the utterance into an unexpected, contrived situation. The meaning of the proverb is usually distorted by being placed into striking juxtaposition with the third part of the wellerism. “In this way a wellerism often parodies the traditional wisdom of proverbs by showing the disparity between the wisdom of the proverb and actual reality” (Mieder 1989: 225).

According to Mieder (1989: 226–227), “many wellerisms are reactions against proverbial clichés. Proverbs have a tendency to oversimplify life and its problems, and the wellerism is a splendid way to parody them through a proverbial structure.... On the one hand wellerisms might effectively parody existing proverbs since they appear at times not to fit the modern world any longer, but on the other hand wellerisms also continue to be used because they give us the opportunity to react satirically or humorously against complex problems by using a triadic proverbial structure which has served that purpose for centuries”.

Only one anti-proverb in the form of a wellerism has been found among the 263 anti-proverbs about money (17). The wellerism plays on the polysemy of the word “time”, which refers to either a watch or clock:

1. “Time is money,” as the man said ven^[7] he stole the patent lever watch. {Time is money}

2. (Mieder and Kingsbury 1994: 138)

2.2.5 Addition of one or several separate sentences

One or even several separate sentences may be added to the original proverb text (18); e.g., a paronym of the word “money”, i.e., “monkey” (one of the favorite words of punsters in the corpus of Anglo-American anti-proverbs about money, see T. Litovkina 2025b, 2025c), can be added to the tail:

1. Money doesn’t grow on trees. And it’s a good thing it doesn’t. It would make monkeys out of lots of people. {Money doesn’t grow on trees}

   (Safian 1967: 57)

It is amazing the ease with which some proverbs (e.g., Money isn’t everything) have been extended into a great number of twists of this kind. Some transformations of this proverb are the following:

1. Money isn’t everything. It isn’t even enough.

   (Kilroy 1985: 306)

2. Money isn’t everything. I’ve had money and I’ve had everything – and believe me, they’re not the same.

   (Metcalf 1993: 148)

3. Money isn’t everything, and don’t let anybody tell you it is. There are other things, such as stocks, bonds, letters of credit, travelers cheques and drafts.

   (Marysville, Kansas, Advocate, in Prochnow 1958: 284)

The following example might not count as an anti-proverb per se, but it can be treated as a joke (20):

1. Money isn’t everything.

2. Who told you that?

3. My boss.

4. (Metcalf 1993: 149)

2.2.6 Conjunctions

This section examines the conjunctions with the help of which new words might be added to our proverbs.

In numerous cases, the added elements are introduced by the conjunction but; the elements contain commentaries that put the wisdom of a proverb into question or negate it (for more on the role of this conjunction in anti-proverbs about money, see T. Litovkina 2025e). The proverbs Money talks; Money isn’t everything; Money cannot buy happiness; Money makes the mare go are very popular for this type of transformation (21a–21g):

1. Money talks – but the only time it does is when it’s doing a countdown before taking off.

   (Safian 1967: 55)

2. Money isn’t everything, but it’s way ahead of any of its competitors.

   (Esar 1968: 529)

3. Money isn’t everything, but subtract it from some people and there’s nothing left. {Money isn’t everything}

   (Esar 1968: 528)

4. Money can’t buy happiness, but it helps you to be unhappy in comfort.

   (McKenzie 1980: 229)

5. Money doesn’t buy happiness, but it pays for the illusion. {Money doesn’t buy happiness}

   (Prochnow 1985: 119)

6. Money makes the mare go, but horses make the money go.

   (Anonymous 1908: 25)

7. Money makes the mare go – but not the nightmare. {Money makes the mare go}

   (Mieder 1993: 185)

Reading some of these and many other texts cited in the study, it becomes clear that the coiners of anti-proverbs deliberately misunderstand and distort the proverbs (frequently narrowing down their meaning by a literal interpretation), pointing out only a specific case for which the proverbs in question are incorrect. However, anyone of us could recall many situations in which these proverbs fit perfectly. As Mieder states, “proverbs are no longer sacrosanct bits of wisdom laying out a course of action that must be adhered to blindly. Instead, proverbs are considered questionable and at best apparent truths that are called on if the shoe (proverb) happens to fit. When that is not the case, they are freely changed to express opposite points of view” (Mieder 1993: 90).

While the examples 21a–21g partially or entirely contradict the wisdom of original proverbs being transformed, examples 22a–22c, as well as 23a–23c, confirm the truthfulness of genuine proverbs.

The second most frequently employed conjunction used to attach an addition to a proverb in our corpus is and. The proverbs Money talks; Money is the root of all evil and Time is money quite often employ this conjunction (22a–22c):

1. Money talks, and it’s the only conversation some people are interested in.

   (Esar 1968: 178)

2. Money is the root of all evil – and also of a good many family trees.

   (Safian 1967: 54)

3. Time is money, and many people pay their debts with it.

   (Josh Billings, in Esar 1952: 203)

   Another popular conjunction in our corpus is especially (23a–23c):

4. Money talks, especially hush money. {Money talks}

   (Esar 1968: 81)

5. A fool and his money are soon parted – especially with the government to expedite matters. {A fool and his money are soon parted}

   (McKenzie 1980: 187)

6. Time is money, especially when you’re talking to a lawyer or buying a commercial. {Time is money}

   (Frank Dane, in Lieberman 1984: 245)

7. Time is money, especially when you’re having the time of your life. {Time is money}

   (Esar 1968: 183)

2.3.1 Addition and word change

In the following transformations of the proverb A fool and his money are soon parted below (24a–24b), one word in the parody substitutes one word in the proverb (elected and wife subsequently). While the first proverb transformation (24a) employs both word exchange and word addition preceding the original proverb, in the second example (24b) word addition follows the original proverb text:

1. Walton’s Law of Politics:

   A fool and his money are soon elected.

   (Bloch 1990: 224)

2. A fool and his wife are soon parted. See Alimony.

   (Wurdz 1904)

2.3.2 Addition and repetition of words

Word repetition is very common in proverbs from different languages and has been found in about a quarter of all American proverbs (for more on repetition figures in American proverbs, see Norrick 1991). In our 13 proverbs about money, however, only one proverb (7.7% of the total) has been found with word repetion: Money makes money.

Neal Norrick stresses the following:

First off, repetition produces parallelism, which is so frequent in proverbs that it could almost count as a defining property. Second, repetition in sound, wording and sense facilitates memorization, so that we might predict its regular occurrence in proverbs on that basis alone. But repetition in wording seems to do more than make a proverb noticeable and memorable: it suggests conviction and it enhances persuasive power (Norrick 1991: 121).

In our anti-proverbs, the simple repetition of a word might appear twice. This sometimes happens when the proverb text itself does not change and the word in question appears in an extension (i.e., a tail) which usually follows the original proverbial text. Short proverbs such as Money talks or Time is money very frequently employ this type of variation (23a, 23d, 25).

As shown in the example below (25, see also Ex. 15 above, in Section 2.2.4), word repetition and addition might be combined with the employment of antonyms to one of the words of an original proverb in the tail (such as talks and listens), helping to add the opposite view to a proverb text:

1. They say money talks. But smart money listens. {Money talks}

2. (Mieder 1989: 274)

The repeated words might be homonymous or polysemous (such as in the anti-proverb below, which plays on two different meanings of the word “root”):

1. Money is the root of all evil and a man needs roots. {Money is the root of all evil}

2. (Kandel 1976)

Sometimes two words might be repeated twice or even three times in an anti-proverb, as in the examples below (27a–27b) in which word addition is employed in combination with the repetition of two words (“money” and “talk” in 27a, as well as “time” and “money” in 27b):

1. When a millionaire’s money talks, it usually talks about more money. {Money talks}

   (Esar 1968: 517)

2. Time is money and money is time – so get all the money you can without getting time. {Time is money}

   (Esar 1968: 631)

In our examples, word addition combined with triplication occurs less frequently than simple duplication. Observe the example below (28) in which the word “root” is employed three times; however, when used the third time, there is a conversion (a noun “root” from the original text of the proverb is changed into a phrasal verb “root for” of its transformation):

1. Remember – Money is the root of all evil. If money is the root of all evil, why does everyone root for it? {Money is the root of all evil}

2. (Mieder 1989: 274)

The example above might be called a repetitive pun (in a repetitive pun, punning words are repeated; see T. Litovkina 2025c).

Repetition in anti-proverbs is not limited to exact duplication or triplication of words; sometimes the parodies repeat only parts of words or morphemes (such as roots in the words “root” and “uproot”), or play upon the resemblances of similar-sounding words (such as “mare” and “nightmare”), as is shown in the following repetitive puns (29a–29b):

1. Money is the root of all evil – but nobody has ever cared to uproot it!

   (Palma 1990: 8)

2. Money makes the mare go – but not the nightmare.

   (Mieder 1993: 185)

2.3.3 Addition, word repetition, and word order reversal

The addition of new words at the end of a proverb (introduced by the conjunction but), word repetition in its tail, and word order reversal (money and trees) in proverbs are exploited in the transformation of the proverb Money doesn’t grow on trees below (30):

1. Money doesn’t grow on trees – but trees don’t grow on money either!

2. (Palma 1990)

2.3.4 Addition and literalization

The authors of anti-proverbs frequently literalize a proverb, while citing it in its original wording, and then add a statement which puts its wisdom into question or negates it completely. Such short commentaries are often introduced by the conjunctions “but”, “except”, “unless”, and “especially” (31) (see also Section 2.2.6 above):

1. Money doesn’t grow on trees...unless you happen to be a successful orchardist. {Money doesn’t grow on trees}

2. (Berman 1997: 283)

2.3.5 Addition and punning

A pun is defined by Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary (p.1461) as “the humorous use of a word, or of words which are formed or sounded alike but have different meanings, in such a way as to play on two or more of the possible applications; a play on words”. Salvatore Attardo, along with many other humor researchers, distinguishes four subcategories of puns – paronyms, homonyms, homographs, and homophones (Attardo 1994: 110–111). Charles Hockett (1972: 157) talks about two categories of puns – “perfect” (identical in sound) and “imperfect” (non-identical). According to Evan Esar, “the variety of puns must be infinite” (1952: 77). He lists some puns according to category (e.g., repetitive, blending, divisive, additive, linking, etc.). In addition, certain puns involve not simply single words but groups of words or even sentences (for a detailed discussion of punning in Anglo-American anti-proverbs about money, see T. Litovkina 2025b, 2025c).

Addition before the original text of a proverb combined with word substitution based on punning might frequently occur in jokes and stories. To illustrate this, let us consider the following texts employing double paronomastic puns (based on the phonological resemblance of the same pair of words) to rework the proverb: A fool and his money are soon parted (32a–32b). In both alterations, the word “fool” is substituted by the word “foal”, while the word “mummy” replaces the word “money”:

1. A horse farm made it a habit to bottle-feed its colts when they were only a few days old. Hence: a foal and his mummy are soon parted.

   (Jennings 1980: 47)

2. A Kentucky horse breeder named Schubert invariably has his young colts bottle-fed after they’re three days old. He knows that a foal and his mummy are soon parted.

   (Cerf 1968: 19)

Finally, there are a number of other mechanisms of proverb variation combined with addition such as rhyme, blending, and many others I could have also mentioned and discussed in detail in Section 2.3.