A Dictionary of American Proverbs

About this book

A Dictionary of American Proverbs is a treasury of more than 15 000 sayings adages and maxims commonly used in popular speech in the United States and Canada. As the first major collection of proverbs in the English language based on oral sources rather than written sources it includes thousands of uniquely American proverbs that have never before been recorded as well as many thousands of traditional sayings that have found their way into American speech from classical biblical British continental European and American literature. This unparalleled collection will delight the general reader as well as the specialist. Collected here are nuggets of popular wisdom on all aspects of American life: weather agriculture geography travel money business food neighbors friends manners government politics law health education religion music song and dance. Field work on the Dictionary was conducted over thirty years under the direction of the Committee on Proverbial Sayings of the American Dialect Society and resulted in 15 000 records of proverbial texts which have been edited for this collection. The result is an invaluable reference for general readers and students as well as cultural historians folklorists linguists anthropologists sociologists and scholars of literature.