oil and water don't mix

English edit

Proverb edit

oil and water don't mix

  1. Black people and white people should not form relationships; an admonition against miscegenation.
    • 1974, K. Jamiluddin, The Tropic Sun: Rudyard Kipling & the Raj, page 29:
      I don't think you quite realise, Benneville, what it means to be married to a native woman. It will mean that you lose friends, home, and everything that is worth living for to an Englishman. You would not be likely to make friends with the other natives. Oil and water don't mix. . .
    • 1989, Richard Jenkins, John Solomos, Racism and Equal Opportunity Policies in the 1980s, page 171:
      Less dramatic than open bigotry, but equally problematic, is theignorance displayed by shop stewards and officials subscribing to what Barker (1981) has called the 'new racism' , the 'reasonable', and ' acceptable' racism of the 'I'm not racist but . . . oil and water don't mix' kind.
    • 2007, H. Nigel Thomas, Return to Arcadia, page 33:
      She say that when nigger people step out o' they place and start for rub shoulders with Bacra, trouble just 'round the corner. She say oil and water don't mix, and she going beat me if I keep company with you.
  2. (more generally) Some people, things or characteristics do not go together.
    • 2012, Larry Warkentin, Bloodline: of Peasants, Pilgrims and Poets, page 231:
      And the Mennonite boys don't consider her suitable. As you know, oil and water don't mix.
  3. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see oil,‎ water,‎ don't,‎ mix.
    • 2015, Kathy Wollard, How Come?: Every Kid's Science Questions Explained, page 59:
      Oil and water don't mix because oil is nonpolar and water is polar.