No, a perverb is not a pervy proverb (i.e. lace curtains never stopped any Peeping Tom with character). Rather, it's the creative combination of two or so tired old phrases into one exciting new phrase (i.e. stop and smell the death and taxes). It's a lovely way to forge new bits of wisdom out of old ones which have lost their oomph to overuse.
I had to write a list of 15 these for a class, but I get the feeling I missed a bunch of really good ones. So I'm crowdsourcing to all y'all clever people to find the best perverbs capable of existence (for entertainment value only -- I already turned in the assignment). I'M DOING THIS BECAUSE I BELIEVE IN YOOOOOOOU!
Below, I've included a few more of my perverbs, accompanied by pictures of weirdly beautiful hybrid taxidermy jobs by the artist Enrique Gomez de Molina (because this is likely the only blogpost I'll ever write where those will be even tangentially relevant).
Honesty hurts
The Devil is in an apple a day.
Big brother has more fun
A little knowledge makes Jack a dull boy
A rolling stone turneth away anger
The road to hell is paved with pennies saved
Business by any other name wouldn’t smell as sweet
Diamonds are next to Godliness
Dead horses tell no tales
Damn! The torpedoes killed the cat!
So what's your best perverb? Share a couple in the comments so we can all chortle at them together alone at our personal computers!
