proverb · Words worth keeping
Cheese it is a peevish elf, It digests all things but itself.
Cheese it is a peevish elf, It digests all things but itself.
Understand the thought
Meaning in plain English
The rhyme personifies cheese as a troublesome elf that digests everything except itself. Its comic contradiction presents the food as having a power it does not extend to its own substance.
Example
A reader recognises the joke’s reversal while declining to use it as an explanation of digestion.
Deeper explanation and when to use it
Peevish makes the imagined character difficult, and all things but itself provides the joke’s reversal. A responsible reading identifies the personification without adopting the digestive claim as science. The verse can show how a food preference or complaint is made memorable through a creature and a contradiction. Its exact practical setting is not supplied.
When to use it
Use it to examine personification and contradiction in food lore.
Keep in mind
The verse does not establish how cheese affects digestion.
An interpretation of the words, not a claim about their earliest origin.
Attribution & collection notes
- Author or tradition
- Traditional
Attribution: traditional - Country attributed
- Not established
A country attribution does not establish the earliest origin. - Historical period
- Date unknown
- Culture
- English