Grasses and Society
Grasses have long had significance in human society. They have been cultivated as feed for domesticated animals for up to 10,000 years, and have been used to make paper since the second century AD. Also, the primary ingredient of beer is usually barley or wheat, both of which have been used for this purpose for over 4,000 years.
Some common aphorisms involve grass. For example:
- "The grass is always greener on the other side" suggests an alternate state of affairs will always seem preferable to one's own.
- "Don't let the grass grow under your feet" tells someone to get moving.
- "A snake in the grass" means dangers that are hidden.
- "When elephants fight, it is the grass which suffers" tells of bystanders caught in the crossfire.
A folk myth about grass is that it refuses to grow where any violent death has occurred.
Read more about this topic: Poaceae
Famous quotes containing the words grasses and, grasses and/or society:
“And each of the huge white creatures was huger than fourscore men;
The tops of their ears were feathered, their hands were the claws of birds,
And, shaking the plumes of the grasses and the leaves of the mural glen,
The breathing came from those bodies, long warless, grown whiter than curds.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“‘I’m sorry that I spelt the word:
I hate to go above you,
Because’Mthe brown eyes lower fell—
‘Because, you see, I love you!’
Still memory to a grey-haired man
That sweet child-face is showing.
Dear girl! the grasses on her grave
Have forty years been growing.”
—John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892)
“What is a society without a heroic dimension?”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)