Numlock Sunday: David Montgomery reads from the book of proverbs

By Walt Hickey

Welcome to the Numlock Sunday edition.

This week, I spoke to David Montgomery over at YouGov, who also writes YouGov America’s newsletter, The Surveyor. David recently wrote Which proverbs do Americans find wise?, here's what I wrote about it:

A new survey polled various different proverbs or aphorisms to see which people actually agreed with. Generally amenable phrases include “Actions speak louder than words,” which enjoyed 92 percent agreement and just one percent disagreement, “Honesty is the best policy” (82 percent agree, four percent disagree) and “Never judge a book by its cover” (81 percent agree, five percent disagree). The most heavily disagreed with proverbs included “If you can't beat them, join them” (49 percent disagree, 23 percent agree), “The customer is always right” (47 percent disagree, 31 percent agree) and “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks” (43 percent disagree, 37 percent agree.) Respondents were split on “Sticks and stones may break my bones,…