Idiom
present company excepted
Meaning
These negative remarks do not pertain to anyone who is currently listening to them (including the speaker).
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“Everyone here is lazy, present company excepted.”
“Most of the staff members are quite unreliable, present company excepted, so I appreciate your hard work.”
“While the committee members have consistently failed to address these systemic issues, present company excepted, I remain hopeful that our current collaboration will yield a different result.”
Examples
simple
“Everyone here is lazy, present company excepted.”
contextual
“Most of the staff members are quite unreliable, present company excepted, so I appreciate your hard work.”
complex
“While the committee members have consistently failed to address these systemic issues, present company excepted, I remain hopeful that our current collaboration will yield a different result.”
Key words
Related idioms
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