About this ebook
Three hundred traditional English sayings, sorted by what they are about rather than by their first letter, with what each one means and, the part other collections leave out, the moment it fits: who says it, to whom, and where it would land badly. Every cloud has a silver lining is comforting on a Tuesday and unbearable at a funeral, and nothing in the meaning tells you which.
Thirty groups of ten across six parts, from work and time through money, risk, friendship, truth and appearances to the oldest layer of all, the weather and the animals. Each group closes with a note: where a saying came from, a word in it that no longer means what it looks like, or two on the page that flatly contradict each other.
The contradictions are not an oversight. Many hands make light work sits forty pages from too many cooks spoil the broth, and both are in daily use, because proverbs are not a system of rules but a stock of ready-made arguments. Twelve such pairs are listed at the back, with an alphabetical index of all three hundred.
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About the author
Alex Carter writes practical English books for people who use the language at work and in ordinary life rather than in a classroom. The books are built around complete examples — real emails, real conversations, real sentences — on the principle that one worked example teaches more than a page of rules.
