NIEHS Kids Page Riddles -- Double-Speak Proverbs

Scientists have to challenge well-known facts of one type or another every day. They must do this to ensure that they find new ways of doing things and do not accept any "fact" or truth at face value simply because it is a long-standing belief.

The following proverb brainteasers also represent well known facts...old sayings that have been relied on for hundreds of years. You've probably used these proverbs, or at least have heard them used at some point in your life. But for this brainteaser quiz, they have been re-written using BIG WORDS that mean essentially the same thing, but sound a whole lot different. We think you'll agree that they sound much better and make a lot more sense in their original forms, which relied on plain and simple English!

Read the descriptions provided below and try to guess which proverb (old saying) they each represent. You could write all the answers in the blocks provided, and then check the answers after you have done them all. Or you can just think of an answer in your head, and check it as you go along. Don't worry if you say the "proverb" in a slightly different way than shown in these answers. Over the years, there are many slightly different ways of expressing an old proverb!

If a large solid-hoofed mammal becomes available to you without compensation, refrain from casting your faculty for seeing into the oral cavity of such a creature.

Each vaporous mass suspended in the firmament has an interior decoration of metallic hue.

It is not advantageous to place the sum total of your barnyard collections into the same wicker receptacle.

Feathered bipeds of a kindred mind in their segregated environment associate with a high degree of amiability.

Deviation from the ordinary or common routine of existence is that which gives zest to man's cycle of existence.

He who locks himself into the arms of Morpheus promptly at eventide, and starts the day before it is officially announced by the rising sun, excels in physical fitness, increases his economic assets and celebrates with remarkable efficiency.

Do not traverse a structure erected to afford passage over a waterway until the time of drawing nigh unto it.

Superfluous chronological dispatch institutes riddance of valued effects.

There’s no value to be derived from demanding attention by loud screeches over fallen white liquid derived from the lactic glands of a female bovine.

An excess of culinary experts impairs the quality of a thin derivative of meat.

A body of persons abiding in a domicile of silica combined with metallic oxides should not carelessly project small geological specimens.

(Speaking of throwing things, take a minute now to learn more about how to Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle)

A canine which gives vent to his sentiments by a series of vocal efforts, rarely finds use of his bicuspids.

A vessel under optical supervision never reaches the temperature of 212 degrees.

A consolidated mass which forms the earth's crust, and which progresses by turning over upon its surface without slipping, does not successfully gather together a cryptogamous plant.

A mobile section of petrified matter agglomerates no bryophytes.

The placement of the termination as precedent of the commencement should never be assessed.

Never situate the conveyance and its accouterments forward of the perambulating, ambulatory equine.

A chronic disposition to inquiry deprived the domestic feline carnivorous quadruped of its vital quality.

An individual who vacillates when there is need of action will find himself beyond the hope of future success.

Refrain from enumerating your poultry precursory to their incubation and emergence from their embryonic habitat.

Exercise your visual facilities prior to executing a jump.

A feathered biped in the terminal part of the arm equals in value a pair of feathered bipeds in densely branched shrubbery.

Everything is legitimate in matters pertaining to ardent affection and armed conflict between nations.

The herbage is customarily more verduous on the diametrical selvage of the property barrier.

Exercise your visual facilities prior to executing a jump.

A single unit of a seam properly distributed at the correct measure of duration will maintain a square root of 81.

Any object that ascends into the stratosphere irrevocably and inevitably descends to terra firma.

Taciturnity is aurous.

Splintered wood and mineral chunks can rupture my skeletal system, but nomenclatures do not injure me.

An amorous attraction to a financial medium of exchange is the source of everything sinful.

Visualizing is the equivalent to having faith.

Pulchritude pertains solely to the epidermis.

Immature homo sapiens should be endowed with visibility but not oral facilities.

If primary failure is imminent, new attempts should be made repetitiously.

A ferrous alloy rope fashioned of interlocking loops is only as hearty as its least potent section.

One more than one is a congenial group of invited guests, but one more than two is a multitude.

Hemoglobin is more viscous than H2O

Perambulate in moccasins, and shoulder a gargantuan wooden rail.

Allow somnolent quadrupeds that are homo sapien's greatest comrades to remain reclining.

Lack of what is required is the matriarch of inspiration.

A maximum amount of purposeful activity and a minimum amount of disport and dalliance cause Jack to become a dim-witted, stagnant dunce of the male species.

That which is acquired without difficulty is dispersed with equal facility.

It is more desirable to arrive in the medium of time which constitutes a later than desirable hour or date than not to arrive at all.

A red fruit of the Maius family absorbed into the digestive system every 1,440 minutes or 86,400 seconds, keeps a physician from your presence.

Double-Speak Proverbs!