THE CONCISE OXFORD DICTIONARY OF PROVERBS ...
THE CONCISE OXFORD DICTIONARY OF PROVERBS by John Simpson (Oxford University Press: $8.95; 316 pp.). Simpson traces dozens of adages, saws and bromides to their often surprising origins. “Haste makes waste,” was coined by Chaucer in the “Tale of Melibee” (1386). But the often parodied “The family that prays together stays together” was invented by advertising man Al Scalpone, and used in broadcasts for the Roman Catholic Family Rosary Crusade in 1947.
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