Subtitles section Play video Print subtitles 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
B1 US blood turnip stone proverb sue doesn English Tutor Nick P Proverbs (151) You Cannot Get Blood From a Stone 14 0 anitawu12 posted on 2019/09/01 More Share Save Report Video vocabulary