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5 Answers

up vote 4 down vote

If it's fundamentally flawed: you can't polish a turd.

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One has to be careful with this one, but I can't deny I've always liked it since I first heard it. Not so many years ago, actually, so maybe it's worth trying to establish a "first use" here on ELU. After you? – FumbleFingers Dec 20 '12 at 1:40
Earliest reference I've found is to a 1983 film ("Christine", character Will Darnell). Interestingly, Mary Matalin is reported as having quoted Lyndon Johnson (who died in 1973): "you can't shine shit", but I can't immediately see anything better than that. – Billy Dec 20 '12 at 2:29
They might be misdated, but there are a couple of "polish a turd" citations from 1976/77 there. – FumbleFingers Dec 20 '12 at 2:37
And from Love is not a safe country (1967), here's "You can't shine shit," Rina said. – FumbleFingers Dec 20 '12 at 2:41
@FumbleFingers- actually I provided that as an answer to this question a while back. – Jim Dec 20 '12 at 6:53
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up vote 2 down vote

putting rouge on a corpse.

Won't help a bit but will make it look more lively.

I think I can add some from the Jargon File:

Wave a dead chicken (to appease powers-that-be that everything that could be done has been done)

Add Bells and whistles (which doesn't imply the program is faulty but the action is rather useless)

If you like these, I recommend you browse the Jargon glossary, you'll find a plenty.

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I like that! Any more? Thank you! – thomas Dec 19 '12 at 23:54
up vote 2 down vote

I'd never heard of lipstick on a pig before US politicians decided to popularise it very recently, so I'd call that a "soundbite" rather than a "proverb". For something with a slightly longer history...

You can't make a Silk Purse out of a Sow's Ear

...which goes back at least to C17. In my experience, it's normally said disparagingly after a botched attempt to improve something, rather than as advice to start by using good raw materials.

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I thought of the silk purse-sow's ear one, but it doesn't really fit, because it's about making something, rather than about fixing something. (And in my experience, that is how it's usually used.) – Marthaª Dec 20 '12 at 0:53
1  
The Wikipedia article I cited says that that particular sentence comes from 1985. It has two other gems: "Thomas Fuller, the British physician, noted the use of the phrase 'A hog in armour is still but a hog' in 1732, here, as the Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1796) later noted 'hog in armour' alludes to 'an awkward or mean looking man or woman, finely dressed.' The Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon (1834–1892) recorded the variation 'A hog in a silk waistcoat is still a hog'in his book of proverbs The Salt-Cellars (published 1887)." – user21497 Dec 20 '12 at 1:22
@BillFranke Those are great. Thank you. – thomas Dec 20 '12 at 1:31
up vote 0 down vote

Bill Franke already mentioned putting lipstick on a pig, and “Ann” mentioned putting lipstick on a pig in an earlier answer and Kyle Pearson mentioned putting lipstick on a pig in another earlier answer. Also, Tom Au's suggestion of puffery, “that is puffing up the best features [...] and pointedly ignoring the worse ones” applies here.

Also see question #62814, question #41508, question #64079, question #43237, and question #40483, some of which are vaguely related to the current question.

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up vote 3 down vote

There's the relatively recent one about putting lipstick on a pig.

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this makes me laugh. thanks! – thomas Dec 19 '12 at 23:54

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