Saw
An old, familiar saying, usually anonymous, repeated so often it has taken on the authority of common sense.
A saw is a proverbial saying that has been in circulation long enough to feel worn smooth. The word comes from the Old English 'sagu', 'that which is said', and by Shakespeare's time it already carried its modern implication of tired familiarity — Jaques in As You Like It speaks of the justice 'full of wise saws and modern instances'.
A saw sits between a proverb and a cliché. Like a proverb, it packages practical wisdom in memorable form; unlike a proverb, it usually feels borrowed rather than fresh. 'A stitch in time saves nine'; 'look before you leap'; 'the early bird catches the worm' — these are saws. They are true enough to be useful and hackneyed enough to be resented.
Writers deploy saws deliberately to sound folksy, to establish a character's provincialism, or to set up a subversion. A speech that trots out saws unironically brands its speaker as unoriginal; a speech that inverts a saw ('the early worm gets caught') can score a real rhetorical point by playing against the reader's expectation of the familiar shape.
Common mistake: mistaking a saw for an argument. Because saws sound decided, they can be used to shut down thought rather than to advance it. A saying is not evidence, and 'they say' is not a source.
“The old saws of our fathers must be taken with the salt of our own experience.”
Keep reading the glossary
A traditional saying that expresses a generally accepted truth — almost always anonymous.
An old, well-known saying that has acquired authority through long use.
A phrase or quote so overused that it has lost most of its force.
A statement so obviously true that it is almost not worth saying.