Idiom
Posted: Mon Dec 23, 2024 9:31 pm
Douglas Mercer
December 23 2024
Until, say, 1965, the idiom a rolling stone gathers no moss was generally considered be an injunction to not be a rolling stone, that is moss was associated with experience and knowledge and wisdom and one wanted to be rooted in order to attain these qualities. Some time around sixty years ago the meaning changed diametrically, and now the idiom a rolling stone gathers no moss is an exhortation to be a rolling stone, and moss is now seen as the dead hand of the past which stifles one and inhibits one from being a free spirit. Plato said that when the music changes the walls of the city shake; likewise when an ancient idiom changes not just in a shade of meaning but into its exact opposite.
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Notes:
A rolling stone gathers no moss is a proverb, first credited to Publilius Syrus, who in his Sententiae states, "People who are always moving, with no roots in one place or another, avoid responsibilities. The phrase spawned a shorter mossless offshoot image, that of the rolling stone.
The saying may not be authentic to Publilius Syrus, as the Latin form usually given, Saxum volutum non obducitur musco, does not appear in his edited texts. It is first documented in Egbert of Liège collection in Latin, "Fecunda Ratis" (The Well-Laden Ship), V. 182, of about 1023: "Assidue non saxa legunt volventia muscum." Therefore, the proverb was not invented but made popular 500 years later by Erasmus' Adagia, first published in England around 1500. Erasmus gave the saying in both Greek and Latin. It is also given as "Musco lapis volutus haud obducitur", and in some cases as "Musco lapis volutus haud obvolvitur"
The conventional English translation first appeared in John Heywood's collection of Proverbs in 1546, crediting Erasmus. Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable also credits Erasmus, and relates it to other Latin proverbs, "Planta quae saepius transfertus non coalescit" or "Saepius plantata arbor fructum profert exiguum", which mean that a frequently replanted plant or tree yields less fruit than an olive or oak tree that is left in place for hundreds of years.
By the 19th century, the theme of"rootlessness having negative consequences was still much in place. To quote the 1825 Dictionary of Scots Language: Any gentleman, whether possessing property or not, who was popular, and ready to assist the poor in their difficulties, might expect a day in the moss, as they were wont to term it, and could have them longer for payment. At the time, A day in the moss referred to cutting peat in bogs (made of consolidated sphagnum moss) referring to hard work in preparation for winter. An itinerant rolling stone will not likely feel the timely need to gather moss, by applying for access to a community's peat bog.
December 23 2024
Until, say, 1965, the idiom a rolling stone gathers no moss was generally considered be an injunction to not be a rolling stone, that is moss was associated with experience and knowledge and wisdom and one wanted to be rooted in order to attain these qualities. Some time around sixty years ago the meaning changed diametrically, and now the idiom a rolling stone gathers no moss is an exhortation to be a rolling stone, and moss is now seen as the dead hand of the past which stifles one and inhibits one from being a free spirit. Plato said that when the music changes the walls of the city shake; likewise when an ancient idiom changes not just in a shade of meaning but into its exact opposite.
***
Notes:
A rolling stone gathers no moss is a proverb, first credited to Publilius Syrus, who in his Sententiae states, "People who are always moving, with no roots in one place or another, avoid responsibilities. The phrase spawned a shorter mossless offshoot image, that of the rolling stone.
The saying may not be authentic to Publilius Syrus, as the Latin form usually given, Saxum volutum non obducitur musco, does not appear in his edited texts. It is first documented in Egbert of Liège collection in Latin, "Fecunda Ratis" (The Well-Laden Ship), V. 182, of about 1023: "Assidue non saxa legunt volventia muscum." Therefore, the proverb was not invented but made popular 500 years later by Erasmus' Adagia, first published in England around 1500. Erasmus gave the saying in both Greek and Latin. It is also given as "Musco lapis volutus haud obducitur", and in some cases as "Musco lapis volutus haud obvolvitur"
The conventional English translation first appeared in John Heywood's collection of Proverbs in 1546, crediting Erasmus. Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable also credits Erasmus, and relates it to other Latin proverbs, "Planta quae saepius transfertus non coalescit" or "Saepius plantata arbor fructum profert exiguum", which mean that a frequently replanted plant or tree yields less fruit than an olive or oak tree that is left in place for hundreds of years.
By the 19th century, the theme of"rootlessness having negative consequences was still much in place. To quote the 1825 Dictionary of Scots Language: Any gentleman, whether possessing property or not, who was popular, and ready to assist the poor in their difficulties, might expect a day in the moss, as they were wont to term it, and could have them longer for payment. At the time, A day in the moss referred to cutting peat in bogs (made of consolidated sphagnum moss) referring to hard work in preparation for winter. An itinerant rolling stone will not likely feel the timely need to gather moss, by applying for access to a community's peat bog.
