Is the phrase Nem kell mindig kaviár ‘It can’t always be caviar’ a proverb or an adage?
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18349/MagyarNyelv.2024.2.183Keywords:
phraseology, proverb, catchphrase, conversational routine, Hungarian language, German language, English languageAbstract
In the Magyar közmondások nagyszótára (and its predecessor, the Magyar közmondástár), the phraseme Nem kell mindig kaviár (It can’t always be caviar) is used in the following sense: ʼthe best, the most expensive, the most delicious are not always neededʼ (T. Litovkina 2005: 324, 2010: 324). It does not appear in more relevant Hungarian phraseographic and paremiographic works (Forgács 2003, Ujváry [2003], Bárdosi 2015, Szemerkényi 2019), although the word kaviár ʼcaviarʼ has been recorded in Hungarian language since 1783 (TESz. 2: 413, ÚESz.). The phraseme, which was popularised by a TV series based on Johannes Mario Simmelʼs novel “Es muss nicht immer Kaviar sein”, which was shown in Hungary in 1982, is more a catchphrase (adage) or a formulaic expression (conversational routine) with catchphrase origin than a proverb. According to my survey, it is not considered widespread, nor it does not show the formal features of a proverb, such as the logical structure p → q. The meaning of the original German phraseme given in the German phraseographic literature (Duden 2002: 392, Duden 2017: 403) corresponds to the meaning given by T. Litovkina. The caviar component is rather rare in the European proverbial treasure, although not entirely unknown. The phraseme caviar(e) to the general, comes also from a well-known author (William Shakespeare).
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