The Dictionary of Authentic American Proverbs is the culmination of 50 years of Wolfgang Mieder's proverb scholarship. He has published numerous works on proverbs in North America, but previous works did not draw a distinction between American (US) and British proverbs in use in North America. In the case of this dictionary, Mieder follows scholarly principles in tracking down first occurrences of proverbs that were coined in North America (and in a few cases, Canada, p. 4) from the seventeenth to the twenty-first century.
The nearly 40-page introduction covers topics of the origin of proverbs in North America, loan proverbs of North American origin, obvious American (US) proverbs, structure and variants, and anti-proverbs, as well as themes and American (US) values. It is a tour de force of Mieder's proverb research acumen.
With any inquiry into authenticity, the question arises about how those not meeting the cut are classified. What...
