A Dictionary of American Proverbs (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780195053999)

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.

Author: Wolfgang Mieder
ISBN-10: 0195053990
ISBN-13: 9780195053999
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Language: English
Published: 12/05/1991
Pages: 736
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 2.63lbs
Size: 9.72h x 6.26w x 1.84d

Review Citation(s):
Booklist 02/01/1992 pg. 1052
Booklist 05/01/1993 pg. 1620
Booklist 05/15/2000 pg. 1772
ALA Ref Srces for Small/Med Li 01/01/2000 pg. 253
Library Journal 12/01/1991