"Vanas na ei ole varnast v tta"?

The article focuses on the use of proverbs in modern Estonian newspaper texts. The 231 proverbs found in the two largest Estonian newspapers indicate that most proverbs were used in the Politics, Reader's Letters and Culture columns of the newspapers. The term 'proverb' might be applied to familiar quotations, modern sayings as well as borrowed sayings. Proverbs are still used for justifying the user's attitude, sometimes also for jocular reasons. Although several proverbs found in the newspaper texts were 'searched' for a specific purpose, the majority of the proverbs appear to be found by "traditional ways, i.e. spontaneously.The English version of the article is available in the electronic journal Folklore no. 10 / 1999;URL: http://haldjas.folklore.ee/folklore/vol10/toughjob.htm