On the books

If something or someone is on the books, there's a record of them written down in official documents somewhere.

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English Phrase: On the books

If you’re on the books, you’re officially enrolled as a member of an organization such as a school, company or sports team.


As a simple example, all of my students are on the books as being current students at ArtisanEnglish.jp.

Even though my company is entirely digital, and there are no ‘books’ to speak of, I can still use the term.

There is another nuance to the phrase, and that relates to law.

All laws are on the books.

Every time a government enacts a new law, it’s written down and stored with all the other rules.

Recently, the Japanese government created a new anti-terrorism law, and it will be permanently enshrined in a volume somewhere very shortly.

I’m not sure who or how many people read them, but the laws are there nonetheless.


This post is understandable by someone with at least an 8th-grade education (age 13 – 14).  

On the Flesch-Kincaid reading-ease test, this post scores 67.  

The easier a passage is to read, the higher the score on a scale of 0 – 100.



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