MSN: People think "blood is thicker than water" means family over everything. The original proverb meant precisely the opposite.
Most of us have heard the proverb "blood is thicker than water" countless times. It's typically used to emphasize that family ties are stronger than other relationships. When someone chooses their ...
People think "blood is thicker than water" means family over everything. The original proverb meant precisely the opposite.
Lindemann got the passage from someone else (from Pustelniak’s source or from Pustelniak himself). Conclusion My theory is that the myth of the “original meaning” of the phrase was accidentally created by Henry Clay Trumbull, whose chapter on blood brotherhood in The Blood Covenant (1885) is titled “Blood is thicker than water”.
Blood is thicker than water. > The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb. [UNKNOWN, this has been asked here already, but no answers were accepted] Jack of all trades, master of none. > Jack of all trades, master of none, but better than a master of one. Great minds think alike. > Great minds think alike, but fools rarely ...
"Blood is thicker than water" is possibly the most misapplied adages; the full version is "The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb," which has a completely opposite meaning to the shortened version.
I feel I should comment that the "blood of the covenant" quote is a modern invention, and much newer than the shorter "blood is thicker than water" with apparently opposite meaning. It's become popular to claim the longer version is the "original" but there are no scholarly sources to support this assertion.