Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs (Oxford Paperback Reference)

About the Author:

Jennifer Speake is a freelance writer. She is the editor of the Oxford Dictionary of Foreign Words and Phrases (1997) and of the Oxford Dictionary of Idioms (1999).

From Booklist:

If it looks like a proverb and sounds like a proverb, it's a proverb--provided that people use it as they would a proverb. Thus, circulating like a computer virus in Britain and North America and ultimately finding their way into The Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs are "If life hands you lemons, make lemonade"; "Garbage in, garbage out"; "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" (attributed to Bert Lance); even "Different strokes for different folks" and nearly 40 other "new" proverbs. The stand-up comic Steven Wright earns a citation with a corollary to "The early bird catches the worm": "The early bird may get the worm, but it's the second mouse that gets the cheese."

Each entry in this update to The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs (3d ed., 1998) is arranged alphabetically by the first significant word and is followed, as before, by several illustrative quotations, beginning with the proverb's first documented use in written English. Editor Speake discusses the plan of the book in a brief preface, in which she also explains that, wherever possible, examples of usage have been brought up-to-date. (From the first, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs was intended to focus on contemporary usage.) Following her preface is the introduction to the first edition (1982) by her former coeditor, John Simpson. Recommended for high-school, public, and undergraduate libraries. Harold Cordry
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