英语词汇you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow-s ear的起源、历史背景-英语词源词典

you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. By pains- takingly using both silk fibers and the skin or hair of a sow’s ear, a man actually did make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear a few years back. But the expression means you can’t make something good out of something naturally inferior in quali- ty. George Herbert was the first to record an approximation of the old saying in his Jacula Predentum or Outlandish Prov- erbs (1633), but Jonathan Swift first recorded it fully in Polite Conversations (1768). The French variation on the saying is “There’s no way to turn a buzzard into a hawk,” while the Rus- sians say “If you’re born to crawl, you won’t fly,” and the Spanish instruct “You can’t find pears on an elm tree.

词汇	you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow-s ear
词源	you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. By pains- takingly using both silk fibers and the skin or hair of a sow’s ear, a man actually did make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear a few years back. But the expression means you can’t make something good out of something naturally inferior in quali- ty. George Herbert was the first to record an approximation of the old saying in his Jacula Predentum or Outlandish Prov- erbs (1633), but Jonathan Swift first recorded it fully in Polite Conversations (1768). The French variation on the saying is “There’s no way to turn a buzzard into a hawk,” while the Rus- sians say “If you’re born to crawl, you won’t fly,” and the Spanish instruct “You can’t find pears on an elm tree.
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