INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION

Summary/Abstract: Proverbs have never been considered sacrosanct; on the contrary, they have frequently been used as satirical, ironic or humorous comments on a given situation. For centuries, they have provided a framework for endless transformation. In the last few decades they have been perverted and parodied so extensively that their variations have been sometimes heard more often than their original forms. Wolfgang MIEDER has coined the term “Antisprichwort” (anti-proverb) for such deliberate proverb innovations (also known in English as alterations, mutations, parodies, transformations, variations, wisecracks, fractured proverbs) and has published several collections of anti-proverbs in both German and (in co-authorship with Anna T. LITOVKINA) English. Wolfgang MIEDER’s term “Antisprichwort” has been widely accepted by proverb scholars all over the world as a general label for such innovative alterations of and reactions to traditional proverbs: anti-proverb (English), anti(-)proverbe (French), aнтиnословицa (Russian), and anti(-)proverbium (Hungarian). Besides the term anti-proverb, many other terms exist in different languages for such phenomena, e.g.:

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