Here's a quiz to delight Tamara!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3645451.stm
test your knowledge of Poland.
Thanks, Sue :) I got 9 right, which isn't entirely surprising (though one was a guess). But, as the -- self-appointed -- Queen of Cliche (if only a Duchess otherwise <g>), I still think they got #3 wrong... I didn't think that *any* of the supplied answers were *quite* on target, though two of them are fairly close. IMO, the best "translation" of "what Johnny hasn't learnt, old John won't know" would be "as the twig is bent, so the tree will grow", not "you can't teach an old dog new tricks".
Even though the construction of the Polish proverb seems to favour the negative aspect (hasn't, won't), the proverb itself is used to stress the long term, *positive* outcome of training -- "if we teach him now, he will know it later" (as does the "bent twig" one). OTOH, the "old dog" proverb stresses the negative aspects *all around* -- "it's too late to do anything, so don't let's bother"... Ditto with the "egg-sucking grandma", except that this one says "it's too late to teach her, because she knows it all already"
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Tamara P Duvall
Lexington, Virginia, USA
Formerly of Warsaw, Poland
http://lorien.emufarm.org/~tpd/
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