The article is based on research conducted in 2004-2007. The investigation focused on Finnish vernacular proverbs used in the early twentieth century. Proverbs are small per-formances in spoken form. Every proverb always occurs within some social occasion. The language of proverbs outside institutions, in everyday use, is not standard language but ver-nacular. Moreover, people do not live in a standardized world and so the interpretation cannot rely on any assumed standard interpretation. Culture, society, historical time, people around — there all add something to the function and interpretation of the proverb used. The focus is on proverbs used by ordinary Finnish-speaking people in everyday communication. The aim of the research was to find out how the pedagogical message of a proverb was understood when heard in childhood. Vernacular pedagogical speech is a part of normal everyday life outside institutions.