# Qui vole un œuf, tue un keuf



## sabres

Hi
Could anyone explain to me please the meaning of this proverbe?

Qui vole un œuf, tue un keuf
thanks


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## BEEKEEPER

Le proverbe est: *Qui vole un oeuf, vole un boeuf.*

Je n'ai jamais entendu : Qui vole un œuf, tue un keuf, et de plus cela n'a aucun sens.


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## jprr

Bonsoir,
Comme dit BEEKEEPER le proverbe original est: *Qui vole un oeuf, vole un boeuf.
*... celui qui commet un petit délit en commetra un plus gros.
Ici le proverbe est reformulé en forme de boutade, en éxagérant : ... keuf en verlan = flic (policier)


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## mgarizona

"He that steals an egg will steal an ox" in English.
"He that steals an egg will kill a cop."

The logic of the former is as faulty as that of the latter, but there's plenty of those who believe the one who would believe the other.


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## BEEKEEPER

mgarizona said:


> "He that steals an egg will steal an ox" in English.
> "He that steals an egg will kill a cop."
> 
> The logic of the former is as faulty as that of the latter, but there's plenty of those who believe the one who would believe the other.


 



Peux-tu expliquer ce que tu veux dire?


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## mgarizona

The logic is faulty ... is it not true that any person capable of committing un petit délit (i.e. most everyone alive) is just as capable of committing un plus gros délit.

This sort of logical fallacy is known as "Affirming the Consequent" ... where you base a conclusion on evidence that does not in fact support that conclusion.

Still there are many people who believe that someone who commits a small crime is just as likely to commit a large one, however fallacious the notion and whether that large one is stealing an ox or killing a policeman.


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## BEEKEEPER

C'est bien ce que j'avais compris de ton explication.
La mienne est un peu différente: En matière de vol, il n'y a pas de différence entre petit et grand voleur. *Que tu voles 5 euros ou 1000 euros, tu es un voleur.*


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## hampton.mc

BEEKEEPER said:


> C'est bien ce que j'avais compris de ton explication.
> La mienne est un peu différente: En matière de vol, il n'y a pas de différence entre petit et grand voleur. *Que tu voles 5 euros ou 1000 euros, tu es un voleur.*



Ah bon, moi je l'ai toujours compris comme "si tu commets un petit délit il te conduira à en commettre un gros plus tard".


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## BEEKEEPER

hampton.mc said:


> Ah bon, moi je l'ai toujours compris comme "si tu commets un petit délit il te conduira à en commettre un gros plus tard".


 



Et quelle est ta conclusion?


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## jprr

mgarizona said:


> "He that steals an egg will steal an ox" in English.
> "He that steals an egg will kill a cop."
> 
> The logic of the former is as faulty as that of the latter, but there's plenty of those who believe the one who would believe the other.


La logique des proverbe est souvent discutable.
Mais ils ont une signification communément admise...

Et de toutes façons ce n'est pas la question posée par sabres, qui voulait justes savoir ce que voulait dire la phrase rencontrée


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## mgarizona

Yes, the sense of "gateway crime" as we say in English is apparent in the other options listed here:

http://books.google.com/books?id=HJ...g#v=onepage&q="he that steals an egg"&f=false


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## doinel

Sabres , peux tu nous dire où tu as trouvé cette expression?
C'est de  l'humour de flics à supposer que ça existe?
Si tu voles un œuf c'est comme tuer un poulet ???


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## Punky Zoé

mgarizona said:


> Yes, the sense of "gateway crime" as we say in English is apparent in the other options listed here:


 "larronneau premier d'aiguillettes, avec le temps de la boursette"  (je ne comprends pas un traitre mot !)



doinel said:


> Sabres , peux tu nous dire où tu as trouvé cette expression?
> C'est de  l'humour de flics à supposer que ça existe?
> Si tu voles un œuf c'est comme tuer un poulet ???


ou peut être du milieu de la banlieue ? (si tu voles un œuf tu finis par tuer un flic)


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## Michael_B

This sentence was said by Philippe Geluck who is a famous satirical political cartoonist.

Without more context, like the drawing and when it was published, it's impossible to tell you what he meant.


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## hampton.mc

BEEKEEPER said:


> hampton.mc said:
> 
> 
> 
> Ah bon, moi je l'ai toujours compris comme "si tu commets un petit délit il te conduira à en commettre un gros plus tard".
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Et quelle est ta conclusion?
Click to expand...

 
Je continue à penser que mon interprétation est la plus courante, mais je garde l'esprit ouvert 

Sinon pour le fil, c'est juste une de ces nombreuses déformations de proverbes qui n'ont pas d'autre intérêt que d'amuser la galerie. Je reste d'autant plus fidèle à ma compréhension du proverbe qu'un petit délit conduit à quelque chose de plus important.


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## doinel

Ah c'était donc P Geluck!!!
Une variante du proverbe comme dit Hampton.mc avec l'image absurde de voler un keuf!  et que tout crime a peu de chance de rester impuni  Jean Valjean, au secours. Comprenne qui peut; c'est comme la phrase de Punky #13


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## BEEKEEPER

Il me semble que mon interprétation est infiniment plus cruelle et réaliste.
Il n'est point de degrés dans l'honnèteté. Que vous détourniez un peu ou beaucoup, vous ètes malhonnète.


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## hampton.mc

BEEKEEPER said:


> Il me semble que mon interprétation est infiniment plus cruelle et réaliste.
> Il n'est point de degrés dans l'honnèteté. Que vous détourniez un peu ou beaucoup, vous ètes malhonnète.



"Que celui d'entre vous qui n'a jamais péché lui jette la première pierre!"


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## Cath.S.

Ce proverbe m'a toujours semblé issu d'une vision manichéenne d'un monde qui serait divisé en deux catégories étanches : les honnêtes gens, d'une part, et d'autre part, de l'autre côté de la proverbiale barrière, les saletés de délinquants dont le seul but est de saboter notre harmonieuse machine sociale.

En effet ce proverbe "jette la pierre".


			
				Hampton MC et Jésus de Nazareth said:
			
		

> "Que celui d'entre vous qui n'a jamais péché lui jette la première pierre!"



Ajout

La traduction et l'explication fournies par MgAz en n°4 me satisfont pleinement.


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## Jenn08

C'est pas lié au fait que Sarko veuille renvoyer les étrangers dans leur pays s'ils tuent un policier ?! Ca voudrait dire alors que l'on fait un peu trop vite l'amalgame entre  les petits délinquants et les criminels... Non ?!


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## Cath.S.

Jenn08 said:


> C'est pas lié au fait que Sarko veuille renvoyer les étrangers dans leur pays s'ils tuent un policier ?! Ca voudrait dire alors que l'on fait un peu trop vite l'amalgame entre  les petits délinquants et les criminels... Non ?!


Je suis d'accord avec toi, c'est probablement ce que Geluck veut dire.


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## doinel

Tous les coups sont permis avec Geluck y compris  et probablement l'approche de Jenn08 ( from Belgium).


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## tellect

Incidemment, qui a la version anglaise du proverbe cité par Punky Zoé "larronneau premier d'aiguillettes, avec le temps de la boursette", voire une version française intelligible ?


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## hampton.mc

My brain is not working properly. (nothing new)
I didn't realize that an "egg" is supposed to become a "chicken", and chicken is flic and flic is keuf. Therefore stealing an egg and eating it, it's like killing the chicken it could have become. Therefore even a small thing can have serious consequences.
C'est un délire complet ou ça amène quelque part ?... loin de Sarko mais bon...


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## mgarizona

tellect said:


> Incidemment, qui a la version anglaise du proverbe cité par Punky Zoé "larronneau premier d'aiguillettes, avec le temps de la boursette", voire une version française intelligible ?



In paraphrase: who begins as a filcher of fringe will in time steal the whole change purse.


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## tellect

Le raisonnement de Hampton.mc serait bien dans la logique geluckienne !


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## mgarizona

Nice one, MC ... but:

"Chicken is _flic_"? That's a new one on me. Though I've seen _poulet _for police inspector, which completes the syllogism as well.


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## hampton.mc

Colloquial: un poulet est un flic, officier ou pas. (very commonly used)
Donc Socrate est un chat


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## mgarizona

hampton.mc said:


> Colloquial: un poulet est un flic, officier ou pas. (very commonly used)
> Donc Socrate est un chat



LOL ... ok, might be bedtime ... I read "Chicken is flic" to mean that the word 'flic' was used to refer to chicken. Even knowing 'poulet = flic' my brain didn't turn that around. Ay Ay AY!


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## Cath.S.

Pounkie said:
			
		

> "larronneau premier d'aiguillettes, avec le temps de la boursette"  (je ne comprends pas un traitre mot !)


Pour PZ et d'autres éventuels mal-comprenants de ce type de françois,  je voudrais expliquer en détail l'adage, ancêtre ou cousin de _qui vole un œuf vole un bœuf_,
_Larronneau premier d'aiguillettes, avec le temps de la boursette._

_Larronneau_ est un diminutif de _larron = voleur_,
_premier_ signifie ici _d'abord_,
une aiguillette pourrait ici désigner un cordon, symbolisant ici tout objet de peu de valeur,
_avec le temps_ : tout le monde comprend 
la _boursette_ = la petite bourse (pleine d'argent)
=>
Le petit voleur qui dérobe d'abord une babiole finira par détrousser (jeu de mots involontaire) son prochain.


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## mgarizona

I had assumed the aiguillette was something that 'dressed up' the boursette, which is why I paraphrased "fringe" up in #25. Am I overthinking? Are they not necessarily connected?


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## Cath.S.

mgarizona said:


> I had assumed the aiguillette was something that 'dressed up' the boursette, which is why I paraphrased "fringe" up in #25. Am I overthinking? Are they not necessarily connected?


De mon côté, j'avais envisagé que puisqu'il s'agit d'un cordon, cela aurait pu désigner celui de la _boursette_.
Je ne sais pas si tu as lu la page du Littré que j'ai mise en lien, mais une expression y est citée :
_Serrer les vieilles aiguillettes, être avare._
Cela me fait penser aux _cordons de la bourse,_ employé encore figurativement de nos jours.


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## mgarizona

Cath.S. said:


> De mon côté, j'avais envisagé que puisqu'il s'agit d'un cordon, cela aurait pu désigner celui de la _boursette_.
> Je ne sais pas si tu as lu la page du Littré que j'ai mise en lien, mais une expression y est citée :
> _Serrer les vieilles aiguillettes, être avare._
> Cela me fait penser aux _cordons de la bourse,_ employé encore figurativement de nos jours.



No I had not looked at Littré. Shame on me. What I had seem re: aiguillettes sounded very ornamental, but clearly you've found the answer.

So in English then, with a play on the set term "purse-strings":

*Who'll swipe the strings will one day pinch the purse.*


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## Cath.S.

Cela sonnerait mieux sans _one day_, cependant. Je trouve.


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## mgarizona

Cath.S. said:


> Cela sonnerait mieux sans _one day_, cependant. Je trouve.



More idiom-atic, I suppose. I don't think better though. First off it's my nod to _avec le temps_ ... but more importantly I think a little breather before the second alliteration softens the blow.


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## Cath.S.

Alright, I suppose I'm the breathless type.


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## Punky Zoé

Les Mal-comprenants vous remercient m'sieur-dame ! 
(je la replacerais pas tous les jours dans la conversation celle-là...)

Arizona Boy, don't you think you may choice between 'one day' and 'will'?

How about *Who swipes the strings one day pinches the purse.* ?


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## prof d'anglais

I believe in English we'd say, "to steal a sheep as a lamb". In French the original expression included boeuf but recently has been adapted to use the slang form for police, actually it's a double slang, police - flick (argot/patois) - keuf (verlan), my meuf told me this. Anyone who'd commit a small crime is just as capable of committing a larger one. Not sure I'd agree, I might be known to occasionally park on a pavement but am incapable of Grand Theft Auto.


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## tellect

Merci Cath. S. et Mgarizona pour nous avoir sorti de la nébulosité.

Gentilshommes et officiers attachaient leurs pourpoints et hauts-de-chausses avec des *aiguillettes*, sortes de tresses ou cordons fermés par les deux bouts et de couleur voyante, agrémentées fort souvent de rubans (dictionnaire des locutions française).


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## Jasmine tea

Et ça a un rapport avec les aiguillettes de canard?


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## tellect

Pour ne pas être mal aiguillé et ne pas rester "illitré" ... :

http://francois.gannaz.free.fr/Littre/xmlittre.php?requete=aiguillette&submit=Rechercher


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## Jasmine tea

1000 fois Merci Tellect. Me voilà bien aiguillée et moins ill.....!


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## hampton.mc

BEEKEEPER said:


> Il me semble que mon interprétation est infiniment plus cruelle et réaliste.
> Il n'est point de degrés dans l'honnèteté. Que vous détourniez un peu ou beaucoup, vous ètes malhonnète.



Voir et voir 

*JOYEUX NOEL A TOUS !!!​*


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## mgarizona

Cath.S. said:


> Alright, I suppose I'm the breathless type.



Honi soit qui mal y pense, mi'lady!



Punky Zoé said:


> Arizona Boy, don't you think you may choice between 'one day' and 'will'?
> 
> How about [/SIZE][/SIZE]*Who swipe the strings one day pinch the purse.* ?



Well ... Who swipe*s* the strings*,* one day pinch*es* the purse.

It's a little awkward. Mainly because you really have to nail that comma, otherwise yr inflection sets you up for:

Who swipes the strings one day pinches the purse [the next].

And I don't think anybody wants that.


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## akaAJ

The law locks up the man or woman
  Who steals the goose from off the common
  But leaves the greater villain loose
  Who steals the common from off the goose.

Beekeeper is correct about the interpretation oeuf/boeuf, an interpretation that is specifically designed to throw a smokescreen around the greater truth of the quatrain above (see also mgarizona).  Banksters, anyone ???


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## BAlfson

Wasn't the original, original saying actually _Qui vole un oeuf tue un poulet_ instead of _un boeuf_? So, _poulet_ is _flic_ and that's _keuf en verlan_, thus mimicing the rhyme of _boeuf _which likely was an earlier, fanciful manipulation of the saying_._

I think I remember hearing _Qui vole un oeuf tue un keuf_ in the 70s spoken by one of my friends that taught me loads of such foolishness. _Pompier bon oeil_, for example.

Cheers - Bob
PS So, I think I'd comment that several of you are guilty of imagining that this phrase was born of a desire to make a political statement instead of just a playful fascination with language.


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## hampton.mc

akaAJ said:


> The law locks up the man or woman
> Who steals the goose from off the common
> But leaves the greater villain loose
> Who steals the common from off the goose.
> 
> Beekeeper is correct about the interpretation oeuf/boeuf, an interpretation that is specifically designed to throw a smokescreen around the greater truth of the quatrain above (see also mgarizona).  Banksters, anyone ???



Voir les définitions et l'usage courant en français de "Qui vole un œuf vole un bœuf" dans le post 43.

Sur ce Bonne Soirée à tous


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## akaAJ

There are apparently two interpretations (1) Honesty is absolute; there are no degrees (2) petty crime will (invariably) lead to the worst crimes.  I don't see much difference.

On the other hand, there does seem to be a difference on whether the proverb is valid, with mgarizona, doinel (Jean Valjean where are you), Cath. S., and hampton.mc voting against.  In case there is misunderstanding about the very popular quatrain (or its variants) that I quoted, let me note that it refers to the enclosure movement in Great Britain, which began to accelerate after the "Glorious Revolution" of 1688 that sealed the alliance between the landed aristocracy and the growing capitalist class, and was most ferocious in 1750-1860 (see, e.g., Wikipedia, or Morton, Hobsbawm, etc., or Oliver Goldsmith's poem "The Deserted Village"):  in violation of the traditional tenure system, which divided the land into the lord's demesne and the commons that peasants shared the usage of (giving the lord his rakeoff, of course), the aristocracy (usually with approval, often after the fact, of Parliament) asserted absolute rights of ownership and drove the peasants off the land (to begin with, to create sheep pasture for the growing wool trade).  The more up-to-date version of the verse, from Anatole France, is, of course "_La majestueuse égalité des lois, qui interdit au riche comme au pauvre de coucher sous les ponts, de mendier dans les rues et de voler du pain._"Someone earlier on in the thread noted the distinction between those who break and those who make the laws.  The latest version, of course, comes from the mouth of Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs, who told some British newspaper that he was "doing God's work".


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## BAlfson

I discuss politics and philosophy in another forum. I help monitor forums on Internet and Network Security in German and English. It would be disrespectful were I to mix these with this forum.

I would politely ask that political discussion be moved to an appropriate forum.

Thanks everyone for helping make this a fun and welcoming venue!

Cheers - Bob


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## Cath.S.

Jasmine tea said:


> Et ça a un rapport avec les aiguillettes de canard?


Le dicton cité par PZ ? Je ne le crois pas.
Il faudrait en fait savoir de quand exactement il date, mais il ne me paraît pas très vraisemblable qu'il s'agisse de gastronomie ici.
Un œuf et un bœuf appartiennent au même champ (c'est le cas de le dire) lexical.
Pas un œuf et un keuf, évidemment, mais c'est censé être une boutade, ce qui justifie l'incongruité de la juxtaposition de ces deux créatures.

_Laronneau premier_* _etc._ est à mon avis censé exprimer une "vérité" issue de la "sagesse" populaire - non, Bob, mes guillemets ne peuvent pas être comptés comme une tentative de glissement vers le terrain politique  -, et ne prétend pas à un quelconque humour, donc le sens de _cordon _me semble le plus vraisemblable.


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## sabres

Merci a iiitous pour les reactions
J'ai trouve le proverb ici:

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_de_faux_proverbes



_Qui vole un œuf vole un bœuf_   Qui viole un œuf, viole un bœuf   Qui vole un œuf, ferait mieux de voler un bœuf   Qui vole un œuf ne fera pas une grosse omelette (Luc Diart)   Qui vole un œuf, va chez les keufs   Qui vole un œuf est descendu bien bas   Qui vole un bœuf est très fort   Qui vole un effet neuf, crée un effet bœuf   Qui vole un œuf est con, parce que ça sert à rien   Qui mange du bœuf, mange du bœuf (slogan publicitaire pour la viande de bœuf)


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## prof d'anglais

...and because of _la vache folle_, more than thirty years ago, the French still won't buy British beef and I can't donate blood in France...


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## akaAJ

This forum discusses meanings and interpretations.  I leave the second thread phrase, "Qui vole un oeuf tue un keuf", a play on the first, to others.

"Qui vole un oeuf, vole un boeuf" ([He] who steals an egg steals an ox), verbs in present tense, is, on its face, nonsense;  an egg is not an ox.  So we are meant to inquire as to the meaning behind the phrase, what the speaker might possibly have in mind, and ultimately his view of society.  The first meaning, cited right at the start, is that the theft of an egg and that of an ox are morally equivalent, that dishonesty (and honesty) are absolute;  implicit is that the theft of an egg warrants the full retribution of the state and society.  This is the 19th century ruling mindset that sent Valjean to the galleys for a loaf, and made theft of twelvepence, one shilling, a hanging offense.  This is politics at its core level;  we cannot avoid discussing the philosophy and all else inherent in the meaning.

As others and I noted, there was and is current another view of this situation, which means to strip the first interpretation of its would-be absolute validity.  As variously stated, this was that those in power write the laws so that actions that threaten them are severely punished, and actions that they take are defined as legal (and moral).  I quoted several such statements spanning three hundred years.

In short, when a question of language is posed, that absolutely requires a discussion of the history, philosophy, and politics that underly it, we are remiss to discuss it at only its most superficial level.


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## BAlfson

The title of the thread is "_Qui vole un oeuf tue un keuf_," so it's not the second thread phase.

My point was that the real meaning is related to the sounds and the plays on words.  In my experience, the political and philosophical meanings have been found by those seeking affirmation of their own, personal beliefs.

Remember the old Art Linkletter show, "Children say the Darndest Things?"  One of his setups was to start a familiar saying to see how the chid completed it.  A friend told me one he did with his 4-year-old daughter; "You can lead a horse to water, but ..."

"You can't make him take a bath," she said.  If I were to explain this to a francophone, I wouldn't discuss the difficulties of getting children into the bathtub at times.  I would just say that the child might have known that the actual saying ended with "you can't make him drink."  Had it been my son at age 4, he would have had a glint in his eye because he would have known the correct completion, and that he had just put one over on his dad.

In any case, you weren't the first to slip into the political here, just the author of the last such post before I commented as I did.  Mgarizona made the first editorial comment, and you and he have taught me a lot here, so I was a little hesitant to comment as I did - only a fraction of your post was editorial.  For example, in the post immediately above this one,"the theft of an egg and that of an ox are morally equivalent" is sufficient to clarify the meaning of the aphorism.  The rest of the paragraph clarifies your political viewpoint, and, although I agree with it, it doesn't enhance anyone's understanding of the aphorism itself.

Cheers - Bob


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