When discussing regrets or bad life choices. "No point crying over spilt milk." "You can't undo what's already been done." "No point beating yourself up about it." What would these be commonly referred as? Cliches? Pearls of wisdom? I just feel there's a common expression for these, but it won't come to me.
An idiom (Latin: idioma, "special property", from Greek: ἰδίωμα – idíōma, "special feature, special phrasing, a peculiarity", f. Greek: ἴδιος – ídios, "one's own") is a phrase or a fixed expression that has a figurative, or sometimes literal, meaning. An idiom's figurative meaning is different from the literal meaning.
I think an idiom is technically a saying without self-evident meaning (i.e. that someone of foreign culture wouldn't immediately understand) - so 'spilt milk' counts, but maybe not the others. Maybe proverb? Adage? Aphorism? Maybe even bon mot? Consult a thesaurus for more options - they're probably all slightly different and I'm not sure exactly what you're going for. (Or just 'saying' if you don't need to be specific!)
Adage is the most common formal term for these. Informal terms would be 'sayings' or 'words of wisdom.'
Yes, proverb and adage are two of the words that were lurking somewhere in the back of my mind. I'd already dismissed idiom. Okay, thanks. Now that I have the options I know none of them are a word my character would use. I'll just have him say, "What is this, Say Something Stupid Day?" Or words to that effect.
Just FYI, although lately the word 'proverb' has come to be synonymous with adage, it used to be something more like a fable. Same thing, but more verbose.
