{"id":12930,"date":"2016-09-28T12:44:23","date_gmt":"2016-09-28T11:44:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/blog\/?p=12930"},"modified":"2016-09-28T12:44:23","modified_gmt":"2016-09-28T11:44:23","slug":"mony-a-mickle-maks-a-muckle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=12930","title":{"rendered":"Mony a mickle maks a muckle"},"content":{"rendered":"

There’s a Scots saying Mony a mickle maks a muckle<\/strong>, or Many a mickle makes a muckle<\/strong>, which means “A lot of small amounts, put together, become a large amount”.<\/p>\n

The word muckle<\/strong> certainly means large, and also big, great; much, a great deal of, a lot of; grown-up, mature, adult; of great social consequence, of high rank, great; captial (letter).<\/p>\n

In the context of the saying you’d expect mickle<\/strong> to mean small. However it is actually a variant form of muckle<\/strong>. The original version of the saying was apparently “Mony a pickle<\/strong> maks a muckle” – pickle means “A grain of oats, barley, wheat; a small particle of any kind, a grain, granule, speck, pellet.” It’s possible that pickle became mickle to make the saying more alliterative.<\/p>\n

Another source<\/a> states that this phrase was first recorded in writing in 1614 as “many a little made a mickle” and the Scots version was “A wheen o’ mickles mak’s a muckle”.<\/p>\n

I came across a Japanese equivalent of this saying today: \u3061\u308a\u3082\u7a4d\u3082\u308c\u3070\u5c71\u3068\u306a\u308b or \u5875\u3082\u7a4d\u3082\u308c\u3070\u5c71\u3068\u306a\u308b (Chiri mo tsumoreba yama to naru), which means something like “Piling up dust\/garbage makes a mountain”, and is translated<\/a> as “many a little makes a mickle”. I thought that’s wrong, mickle means a little, but now I know better, possibly.<\/p>\n

Related sayings in English include:<\/p>\n

– Save a penny, save a pound
\n– Little strokes fell great oaks
\n– Little and often fills the purse
\n– Every little helps
\n– Little drops of water, little grains of sand, make a mighty ocean and a pleasant land<\/p>\n

Do you know any others in English or other languages?<\/p>\n

Sources: Dictionary of the Scots Language \/ Dictionar o the Scots Leid<\/a>, The Scotsman<\/a>, jisho<\/a>, Stake Exchange<\/a>, Wordwizard<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There’s a Scots saying Mony a mickle maks a muckle, or Many a mickle makes a muckle, which means “A lot of small amounts, put together, become a large amount”. The word muckle certainly means large, and also big, great; much, a great deal of, a lot of; grown-up, mature, adult; of great social consequence, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104,129,10,55,78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english","category-japanese","category-language","category-scots","category-words-and-phrases"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12930\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}