- English translation
Let the newly rich cook a single meal, and he'll be up all night making a racket over it.
- Literal wording
The newly made one: the night he cooks, he stays up shouting.
- Meaning and lesson
The saying ridicules someone who has only lately come into comfort and cannot carry it calmly. One cooked meal, unremarkable to anyone used to plenty, sets him clamoring through the night, both trumpeting the food and railing against his lot. The racket, whether pride or grievance, betrays how unfamiliar even modest abundance still is to him.
In the proverb's view, endless talk about one's good fortune, whether the gain is great or petty, gives the speaker away. Those whose means are long settled seldom broadcast them, so constant display marks the prosperity as recent and its owner as someone who has not yet grown into it.
- When it is used
Use it as a pointed remark about someone whose fresh prosperity shows mainly in endless talk about it, especially when small comforts are announced as great achievements. Because it mocks social standing, it can insult a real person; keep it for wry informal commentary, not direct address.
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- Colloquial Arabic
Cite or copy proverb
How this record reached us: Editorially sourced.
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