A Dictionary of Proverbs (Oxford Paperback Reference)

1983 M. GILBERT Black Seraphim vi. They say that the onlooker sees most of the game.

It’s not a very happy game that’s being played here at the moment. 1998 ‘C. AIRD’ Stiff

News (2000) iii. 29 So it fell out that Mrs Maisie Carruthers, still too frail to attend the

funeral, but not too immobile to get to the window of her room at the Manor, became the

onlooker who saw most of the game. 1999 ‘H. CRANE’ Miss Seeton’s Finest Hour xix.

164 Mrs. Morris, it was clear, did not suspect that her warm regard for the works manager

was no secret from her assistant—an assistant who by training was an acute observer.

Was not another adage that the looker-on saw most of the game? observation

lord see EVERYBODY loves a lord; NEW lords, new laws.

What you LOSE on the swings you gain on the roundabouts

A fairground metaphor used in a variety of forms.

1912 P. CHALMERS Green Days & Blue Days 19 What’s lost upon the roundabouts

we pulls up on the swings. 1927 Times 24 Mar. 15 By screwing more money out of

taxpayers he diminishes their savings, and the market for trustee securities loses on the

swings what it gains on the roundabouts. 1978 G. MOORE Farewell Recital 129 There

are compensations: what you lose on the swings you gain on the roundabouts. And let’s

face it, a cup of tea or a cup of coffee are all very well but they are not so much fun as

polygamy. winners and losers

You cannot LOSE what you never had

The sentiment is expressed in a number of ways: quot. 1974 represents a local equivalent.
Similar to what you’ve never HAD you never miss.

a 1593 MARLOWE Hero & Leander I. 276 Of that which hath no being do not

boast, Things that are not at all are never lost. 1676 I. WALTON Compleat Anger (ed. 5)

I.V. ‘He has broke all; there’s half a line and a good hook lost.’ ‘I [Aye] and a good Trout

too.’ ‘Nay, the Trout is not lost, for.. no man can lose what he never had.’ 1788 WESLEY

Works (1872) VII. 41 He only seemeth to have this. .. No man can lose what he never had.

1935 Oxford Dict. English Proverbs 601 You cannot lose what you never had. 1974 ‘J.

HERRIOT’ Vet in Harness viii. ‘Only them as has them can lose them,’ she said firmly,

her head tilted as always. I had heard that said many times and they were brave Yorkshire

words. winners and losers