Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Proverbs 157. The proverb today is "one
man's trash is another man's treasure." Okay. Let's take a look at the note here.
This proverb could also be said by substituting the word trash for junk
garbage or rubbish. So therefore you could say one man's trash is another
man's treasure. One man's junk is another man's treasure.
One man's garbage is another man's treasure or one man's rubbish is another
man's treasure. Yeah. Probably the British would might say rubbish more than
Americans. Okay. Let's continue. The proverb means that there are many cases or
many situations in which one person ... what one person considers to be worthless or
trash another person may consider the same thing, the same exact thing to be
valuable or be able to find a good use for it . The exact origin is difficult to
pinpoint, but it could have evolved from many similar older phrases, such as one
man's meat is another man's poison, or one man's pleasure is another man's pain,
or one man's loss is another man's gain. So really it could have ... you know, that they
all have the idea of what's good for one man may be completely different for
another man. Okay. Let's continue in our modern times, this proverb has become
more common due to events such as flea markets, garage sales, secondhand stores,
etc. and people are you know, selling things online that are used too. So
All right. Let's continue. Sometimes the proverb could almost be
literal. In the case of someone putting an old piece of furniture next to their
garbage with the sign, with a sign that says " free. " on it. I have seen this in
America. Sometimes people will do it. If the condition is not too poor. You never
know somebody may come by and just pick it up before...
before the garbageman eventually gets it. But somebody might do that. They might
put a piece of furniture out there. That's not too bad, but they don't want
it anymore. And they might just simply put a sign "free. " And in this case, it's,
it's really almost literal. One man's trash is another man's treasure.
All right. And here's just several examples of just the way we may use it.
Number one. This has an a/b part. Many antique dealers go to flea markets and
garage sales in hopes of finding an antique. Yeah. A lot of times people in
garage sales or you know flea markets, they may be selling something . Sometimes
they don't realize the real value of it. And a lot of antique dealers , this is one
of their main sources of places to look for antiques. So this is a great example
of one man's trash is another man's treasure. All right.
Let's continue. Let's look at number two here. Some dumpster divers ... I think we
might have even covered that as a noun phrase, can make a living by finding
items in some dumpsters. Sometimes some of the items are not in bad shape.
Sometimes people throw away things that's really you know, it's could have
been resold. I think they ... A lot of dumpster divers sometimes will go to
high-class apartment complexes and stuff because high-class people have
higher class garbage. Or, or I've heard that they also will go to like
universities. Because a lot of students you know, maybe they didn't pay for it all or
maybe their parents paid for it all. But they're dumping it at the end. And
sometimes they find some really good stuff that they can either resell
directly or maybe it only needs to be fixed up a little and they can make you
know, some decent money on it. All right. So this is another example of one man's
trash is another man's treasure. And the third one here is that some sculptors
like you know, artists especially artists that work with like metal ... will go to
junk yards looking for metal that they could turn you know, into like real
art. And of course here we will say the same thing. It just goes to prove that
one man's trash is another man's treasure. Like we say
sometimes it's almost literal. Anyway, I hope you got it. I hope you enjoyed it. I
hope it was informative. Thank you for your time. Bye-bye.