Popular sayings, which include clich้s, colloquialisms and jargons, are commonly used in our daily conversation and writing. But some people tend to use them indiscriminately, quite often to impress others but without achieving any effect.
Popular Sayings contains 40 interesting passages that cover a wide range of text types, featuring a collection of nearly 800 sayings and numerous sentence examples to show their usage. It also provides detailed explanations, usage comments and origins, as well as simple alternatives where possible.

1 Bad News
2 Surprising News
3 Coping with Misery
4 Time to Study
5 Job Losses
6 Football Defeat
7 A Disappointment
8 A Letter of Apology
9 A Lucky Escape
10 A Day of Misfortunes
etc.

Betty Kirkpatrick has had a long and distinguished career as editor, publisher and writer of English reference books. She was the editor of the Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary, the editor of Rogets Thesaurus and the compiler of the Oxford Paperback Thesaurus.
Her Dictionary of Cliches published by Bloomsbury is also available in a US edition and a Japanese edition. A language consultant to the Encarta Dictionary and a consultant to Collins school dictionaries, she used to write a weekly language column for the Herald newspaper, based in Glasgow.