Does the saying "A rolling stone gathers no moss" mean anything to you?

1. A person who never settles in one place will never be successful.
2. A person who does not keep active will grow mouldy.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/a_rolling_stone_gathers_no_moss

This proverb now has two meanings: people pay a price for being always on the move, in that they have no roots in a specific place (the original meaning); or people who keep moving avoid picking up responsibilities and cares.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=A+rolling+stone+gathers+no+moss&r=66

The saying may not be authentic to Syrus; the Latin form usually given, Saxum volutum non obducitur musco, does not appear in the edited texts of Publilius Syrus, but it does appear in the Adagia of Erasmus.

The conventional English translation appeared in John Heywood's collection of Proverbs in 1546. Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable also credits Erasmus, and relates it to other Latin proverbs, Planta quae saepius transfertus non coalescit, or Saepius plantata arbor fructum profert exiguum, which mean that a frequently replanted plant or tree (respectively) yields little fruit. It appears that the original intent of the proverb saw the growth of moss as desirable, and that the intent was to condemn mobility as unprofitable. The contemporary interpretation has turned the traditional understanding on its head.

Erasmus's proverb gave the name "rolling stone" to people who meet this description.

Because it is so well known, this saying is one of the most common proverbs used in psychological tests for mental illness, particularly schizophrenia, to look for difficulty with abstraction. American research conducted in the 1950’s between Air Force basic airmen and hospitalized Veterans Administration patients with schizophrenia found that the way a person interprets proverbs can be used to determine abstraction ability. The lack of abstraction ability in these studies was statistically significantly higher in the VA patients and it has thus been construed as indicating pathology. As persons with mental illness are generally believed to demonstrate 'concrete' thinking (a tendency to interpret abstract concepts literally) the research results have, in practice, often been improperly generalised to suggest proverbs alone can be a sufficient indicator of mental illness.

A 'concrete' interpretation of the proverb "a rolling stone gathers no moss" would simply restate the proverb in different words, rather than delivering any metaphorical meaning. For example, a 'concrete' interpretation of the proverb is of the kind "If you roll a stone down a hill, it won't pick up any moss". This kind of answer is considered a failure to abstract and fails the psychological test. An example of an abstract interpretation is when substitution of metaphors occurs. A "rolling stone" is interpreted as an unsettled person or a busy person and "moss" is interpreted as something to be avoided or conversely, something to be desired. The important feature of the test is the discernment and substitution of metaphors rather than a particularly 'correct' answer.

If you rearrange the letters of "A rolling stone gathers no moss," you get "Long grass on motionless earth!".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_rolling_stone_gathers_no_moss

What the proverb really means is "running water is safe to drink." It must be an incredibly ancient saying to help people remind themselves to avoid drinking the water where there is moss on the stones of a river or creek.

Where "rolling stones" occur is in rivers. When the water flow is running fast, the stones are washed free of moss because the water is rushing by them AND because they are rolling as they are being washed down the river.

"Rolling stones," free of "moss," are a good sign. They show the availability of a true necessity of human life: clean water.

Our ancestors, stretching back hundreds of thousands of years through hunter-gathers back into the trees, must have chattered this wisdom to one another.

The real answer to the question what does "A rolling stone gathers no moss" mean is "running water is safe to drink."

Toby Johnson
tobyjohnson.com

The best way to avoid marriage is to never stick around long.

Of course, I think it's a very true saying. Have THE Rolling Stones ever gathered Moss? Not all the time she's with that Dohety freak.

Not really. It just reminds me of Bob Dylan.

to me it means that stones that roll will gather no moss if they are rolling, ha ha it really means nothing at all to me.

It means basically if you are active and get out and live life you'll have far less of a chance of growing tired or bored or any other number of things that happen to people who just lay around and do nothing all the time

Mick Jagger is made of Teflon?