Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Proverbs 151. The proverb today is" You
cannot get blood from a stone. " Okay. You can also hear this phrase as you
cannot get blood from a turnip too. So either you cannot get blood from a stone
or you cannot get blood from a turnip. Okay. Let's continue. The proverb basically
means that you cannot expect to get help from someone who refuses to give it to
you and also you cannot get money from somebody who simply doesn't have the
money. So if he doesn't have the money he can't get it from him. So you cannot get
blood from a stone or you cannot get blood from a turnip. All right. Let's
continue. This origin could be traced back to Torriano's Piazza Universale the
Proverbi Italiani 1662. Yeah. Remember we've... we just covered some other
proverbs by him. Remember he had a book of proverbs. So he didn't invent them all
but he collected them all and he had him in his book of proverbs. The translated
proverb at that time was there's no getting blood out of a wall and then
that eventually led to there's no getting blood out of a stone. And in his second
edition the proverb he added the proverb there is no getting blood out of a
turnip. So that's why we still have both today.
They both supposedly you know, came from The Italian proverb book. Let's
continue. The proverb was also used by Charles Dickens
the famous Charles Dickens. You know in his book, David Copperfield. He used
that one. All right and so we just have several examples to cover these here.
Number one. There is no use asking your uncle for a loan. He never lends to
anyone. It is like getting blood out of a turnip. Okay. So we do use it a lot with
money. In this case he's just refusing to help. He probably has the money but he
just never lends money to anyone. Okay. And number two
here. There is no point to sue him. He doesn't have a penny to his name. You
cannot get blood from a stone. So this is a case also at money but, this guy
has no money. So no point to sue him. Even if you, you'll probably spend more
money try to sue him than the amount of money you'll get back, because he doesn't
have any. So in this case, we say you cannot get blood from a stone. The
obvious reason for both of these is stone doesn't have any blood. You can break
it open. You can do whatever you want. You can put a needle in it. It doesn't matter. It
doesn't have any blood and a turnip has no blood. I don't know if you get any
juice from a turnip but you're not going to get blood from a turnip. Okay. And let's
just look at the last one here Jane will never reveal that secret. You cannot get
blood from a stone. Yeah we sometimes use it with when we say some people refuse
to tell you something too. So that's why I added this last one. Anyway, I hope you
got it. hope you enjoyed it. Thank you for your time. Bye-bye