Aphorisms can be educational

An Afor-what? Most folks don’t know what an aphorism is, so let me enlighten you. I wrote an article about “weird English” in 2014, but I only addressed bad grammar, bad spelling, and things like puns, paraprosdokians, lexophiles and oxymorons. However, the other day, I got a few aphorisms in my email, so let’s look at those.

An aphorism is a “pithy observation that contains a general truth (such as “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”). Pithy, by the way, means “concise and forcefully expressive.” Therefore, an aphorism is a concise statement that expresses a general truth — but can also be humorous.

Here are a few examples of aphorisms (with a few pithy comments by me): “In life, it’s important to know when to stop arguing with people and simply let them be wrong.” This is so true; arguing with a fool just makes you a fool, so stop the nonsense of trying to show someone who is wrong that he or she is wrong!

“Don’t trust everything you see. Even salt looks like sugar.” Although I have never mistaken salt for sugar, walking on thin ice can be disastrous, as is trusting that a gun is not loaded when you pull the trigger. The famous scientist Albert Einstein once said, “A ship is always safe at shore, but that is not what it’s built for.” Huh? And this man broke the code on the speed of light? Einstein also said, “Any fool can know. The point is to understand.” So true — we can apprehend a lot, but we comprehend little most of the time.

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