different strokes for different folks

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English[edit]

Etymology[edit]

1950s US origin, popularized by Muhammad Ali (1966) and later the song Everyday People by Sly Stone (1968).[1][2]

Proverb[edit]

different strokes for different folks

  1. Different people like different things; there's no accounting for taste.
    • 1968, “Everyday People”, in Stand!, performed by Sly and the Family Stone:
      There is a yellow one that won't accept the black one / That won't accept the red one, that won't accept the white one / Different strokes for different folks

Translations[edit]

there's no accounting for taste — see there's no accounting for taste

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Anand Prahlad, editor (2006) The Greenwood Encyclopedia of African American Folklore, →ISBN, page 324: “This quintessential American proverb was coined among urban blacks in the 1950s.”
  2. ^ Gary Martin (1997–), “Different strokes for different folks”, in The Phrase Finder.
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