Examples of copybook

• A small blot on the copybook is as much a blot as a big one.

• Bishop finished blotting his copybook by declaring that it would be at least two years before any sort of elections took place.

• That is clear enough and that assertion is certainly a blot on the venture's otherwise perfect public copybook.

• It was a copybook example of how political pressures inexorably work against sensible commercial decisions in matters such as this.

• I wish he could learn from his own copybook platitudes.

• There is a copybook heading which we forget at our peril: namely, that appetite grows with what it feeds on.

• I hope that he will not make a speech like that again and talk about copybook maxims.

• I believe it is that which has inspired all the copybook maxims of morality we have heard this afternoon.

• From my limited knowledge of what happened, the captain's action was copybook, and the political decision rather than the military action is at issue.

• This is due frequently to a shortage of empties; the copybook maxim, to which reference has been made, has not apparently been carried out.

• Surely, never has so neat a copybook had so black a blot placed upon it.

• We have not done it half as well as the copybooks lead us to believe it can be done.

• Indeed, he said it was an immoral transaction and wondered whether any previous occupant of this great office had ever so blotted his copybook.

• They are certainly erasing many of the blots in their copybook.

• It is a blot on our copybook of full employment; it must be considered, and it is best that it should be brought into the open.