Name: English Tutor Nick P Proverbs (151) You Cannot Get Blood From a Stone
Uploaded: 2019-09-01T12:52:04.000Z
Duration: 3 min 17 s
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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