<P> The literal meaning of the statement itself is true . The television show MythBusters showed that after six months of constantly rolling a stone does not grow moss . </P> <P> Because it is so well known, this saying is one of the most common proverbs used in psychological tests for mental illness, particularly schizophrenia, to look for difficulty with abstraction . American research conducted in the 1950s between Air Force basic airmen and hospitalized Veterans Administration patients with schizophrenia found that the way a person interprets proverbs can be used to determine abstraction ability . The lack of abstraction ability in these studies was statistically significantly higher in the VA patients and it has thus been construed as indicating pathology . As persons with mental illness are generally believed to demonstrate "concrete" thinking (a tendency to interpret abstract concepts literally) the research results have, in practice, often been improperly generalized to suggest proverbs alone can be a sufficient indicator of mental illness . </P> <P> A "concrete" interpretation of the proverb "a rolling stone gathers no moss" would simply restate the proverb in different words, rather than delivering any metaphorical meaning . </P> <Ul> <Li> In Swallows and Amazons by the English children's author Arthur Ransome, the fictional Captain Flint alludes to the proverb by calling his memoirs "Mixed Moss by A Rolling Stone". The theft of the manuscript of the fictional book is a major theme of the real book . </Li> <Li> In The Rolling Stones, a novel by science fiction author Robert A. Heinlein first published in 1952, which a family travels throughout the star system looking for adventure and money . Hazel Stone, the grandmother, says "this city life is getting us covered with moss" when buying their ship . The theme carries throughout the book . </Li> </Ul>

Moss grows fat on a rolling stone meaning