The term never comes from the Latin word numquam . It is an adverb used to refer to something that never happened or that did not occur on any occasion.
For example: “A team has never won three consecutive titles” , “The president never said he was going to take such a measure” , “I know my neighbour and I never thought he could do something like that” .
By analyzing these examples , we can understand what the idea of never refers to. When someone says that a sports team has “never” managed to win three championships in a row, they are indicating that there is no institution that has been consecrated three times in a row in a certain field. On the other hand, mentioning that a president “never” announced that he was going to make a certain decision is a clarification regarding what the president was expected to do. Finally, someone who believes he knows another individual cannot understand an action that said individual carried out: that possibility “never” occurred to him.
To emphasize , it is possible to use the adverbial phrase “never ever” . If a woman is sure that she could not live in a country other than her own, she can say the following: “I will never ever go to live abroad” . The use of “never ever” rules out the option in question.
The term never can be used to state either a truth or a lie . In both cases it emphasizes the fact that something did not happen, but in the second it is used to try with special intensity to escape a reprimand. For example: if a person who has just stolen money from another person by entering their bedroom and opening their safe says "I never entered your room" , he is not only lying but he is trying to emphasize his innocence, since he could just as easily say no instead of never .
There are various proverbs and sayings that contain the word never ; let's look at some of them below:
* «I met yesterday, but I never saw tomorrow» : highlights the idea that the future is uncertain, probably exciting, and worth living with an open mind. Similarly, the past will never come back and therefore it is not worth looking back;
* «Whoever tells me that he has never lied, I am telling them that he is lying» : no one can be sure that he has never told a lie. Therefore, whoever says that will surely be lying at that very moment;
* «To those who do not thank you for what you have done, never sacrifice your own benefit» : it often happens that we make a good gesture to someone who turns out to be ungrateful. Well, this saying advises us not to fall into the trap of helping people of this kind again;
* «For those who work, the day never seems long» : lazy people tend to spend all day in front of the television, or at the bar, wandering around feeling like the hours are not passing. However, those who invest their time and energy in something productive get to the night early, tired from their effort and wanting to go to sleep to start another day of work;
* "a mouse with a good nose is never surprised by the cat" : if we are attentive to our surroundings we reduce the chances of being cheated or harmed.
Finally, Neverland is a fictional territory that appears in “Peter Pan” , a novel by the Scottish author James Matthew Barrie with multiple adaptations to film, theatre and TV. On this island, children never grow up and spend their days having fun, without obligations or responsibilities.