one knife a day keeps the doctor away
the earlier bird is the one who gets the knife
now seriously, I have one for you. For real.
Every culture has his great epic poem. The Cid Campeador, for Spain. Beowulf, for anglosaxons. The Illiad, for the greeks, the Eneid, for then roman, and later on, for Italians, The Divine Comedy.
We argentinians have El Martin Fierro, wich translated would mean The Martin Iron Adventures.
Martin Iron being the name of a famous (and fictional) gaucho. Iron is a poor translation. Fierro is deformation of hierro, wich means Iron. We use the word fierro in our slang to signify iron bars, knifes, and guns.
It's a very long poem. In one of it parts, you can read advises given to Martin Fierro by an old wiseman, but also a burglar and a hobo, who gives him survival advises.
One of them is about knifes, and is part of our culture view on knifes
Las armas son necesarias
pero naides sabe cuando
ansina si andas paseando
y de noche sobre todo
debes llevarlo de modo
que al salir, salga cortando.
Translation
weapons are necessary
although no one now when
so, if you are walking enjoying the view
and even more if it's by night time
you must carry it in way
that when it comes out, it comes out cutting.
The knife is not mentioned, but implied. And the knife is THE weapon for the gaucho. It must be carried concealed, ready for a fast an agressive deployment.
Argentineans of great cities don' t carry knives. But in rural enviroments, and among the "low working class" to use a somewhat questionable tag, they carry knives, and even machetes. Recently several workers from a carpentry got together to watch a soccer match. They came with open carried machetes IWB.
