Everyman's Dictionary of Quotations and • Proverbs. Compiled by D.
C. Browning.
(Dent. 123. 6d.)
THIS book replaces two pre-war Everyman volumes, but is an entirely fresh compilation. Perhaps its most useful section is one con- taining nearly four thousand proverbs. Under this head there is link to be added ; only a slow dropping out of circulation of sayings that belong to the language's vigorous youth. The Bible and Shakespeare continue to supply the bulk of our most quoted phrases, and, if we are to trust this volume, we would seem to be drawing on contemporary poets for lines to replace now forgotten tags from such old favourites as Pilgrim's Progress. T. S. Eliot is cited seven times, and Groucho Marx not at all. Yet, " Whatever you say I'm against it," and " If you marry me I'll never look at another horse," have surely the habit of tripping off more tongues than:
" Wearily as one wouldturn to nod goodbye to Rochefoucauld, If the street were time and he at
the end of the street." Mr. Browning draws on the New Yorker school, on Ogden Nash and Dorothy Parker, but one looks in vain for anything under the heading: Handley, Thomas. Nevertheless, it is probable that, even when their merely
transitory contribution is winnowed away, wireless comedians provide us with more quotable phrases than men of letters. Let these remarks, however, not be interpreted as strictures on this excellent and useful
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