Waxing philosophical (waxing possibly originating from the German word wachsen (to grow)) about water, I first thought of this one *pointing upwards*. The full proverb reads like this:
You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink.
Meaning
People, like horses, will only do what they have a mind to do.
Origin
This proverb might be thought to encapsulate the English-speaking people’s mind set better than any other saying, as it appears to be the oldest English proverb that is still in regular use today. It was recorded as early as 1175 in Old English Homilies:
‘Hwa is thet mei thet hors wettrien the him self nule drinken’
Sticking with the water theme, here are some more corkers:
A fish out of water
Not feeling at home where you are.
Blood is thicker than water
Family is more important than anyone or anything else.
Don’t make waves
Don’t make trouble; do what others are doing.
Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water
When you’re making a change, save what matters to you and dispose of the rest.
You bring water to the sea
You take advantage of something.
It would seem that water is an integral part of life, even to do with philosophy. As you can see from the image headlining today’s blog, we even have our resident horse, Hoss, moonlighting as a zebra and lurking around the water cooler in the AquAid Africa office. Rather fitting, or, as they say in the classics, ‘if the hoof (harf harf) fits, wear it’, keeping in mind the whole zebra + Africa + … connection. Geddit? Geddit?
As you may imagine, I have used a lot of poetic license here, because truly, although we like to think of ourselves as being rather creative in this division of AquAid, we don’t really have a horse doubling as a zebra in our office lurking around the water cooler.
Disappointed? Never mind, so am I!
What we do have though, are water coolers:
Ask away, we’ve oodles of water cooler knowledge and experience and are happy to help. Click here. Neiggghhhhhh!
