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Proverb: Trust but verify
Because Russia is back as being the number one threat to world peace, I’m focusing all of my posts this week on words, idioms, phrases and proverbs related to current events in Europe that affect the world.
Do you Remember Regan, Gorbachev, the fall of the Berlin wall and the nuclear arms treaty they signed?
Gorbachev was the Russian leader with a map of Siberia on his head.
Well, it was a birthmark, but it looks like a map of Siberia.
Anyways, Reagan often used the English translation, trust but verify, of the Russian proverb ‘doveryai, no proveryai.’
Trust but verify means that a responsible person will always verify everything before conducting business with another person.
Basically, trust what people tell you, but verify its truth before you sign on the dotted line.
When I was a kid watching the news with my parents, I remember noticing that Regan said it repeatedly.
It’s a helpful proverb to know, especially now that we are dealing with a Russian government and military that has a different meaning of truth than we do.
Putin’ all that aside, (ha, ha, ha) the proverb trust but verify ironically does have a lot of truth to it.
It makes perfect sense in any country when making any deal to trust what your counterpart says but also take the time to do your due diligence and verify what they say before you sign your life away.
By the way, when you make a deal with Putin, you very well may be signing away your life or at least life as you knew it before he entered your life.
Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test
This post is understandable by someone with at least an 8th-grade education (age 13 – 14).
On the Flesch-Kincaid reading-ease test, this post scores 62.
The easier a passage is to read, the higher the score on a scale of 0 – 100.