You can’t judge a book by its cover

Can you judge a book by its cover if it has no cover?
How do you judge a book that has no cover?

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Proverb: You can’t judge a book by its cover

Today’s proverb is quite a popular one. 

You’ve likely heard it before and may even have used to, too.

Humans have a nasty habit of making judgements about things and people as soon as we see them. 

That’s why first impressions are so important. 


You can’t judge a book by its cover means you shouldn’t form an opinion of something or someone based solely on appearances. 


I’ve heard that we judge what kind of person they are within the first seven seconds of meeting someone. 

If we consider that for a moment, it doesn’t make sense. 

It conflicts with everything our modern society tells us is acceptable about forming stereotypes about people and pigeonholing them before we even know them. 

I’m an avid bookworm

I’ve read all sorts of stories, and many of them are very old.

Some have been so old that the covers had been ripped or torn off years ago. 

How do you judge a book that has no cover? 

You have to begin reading it, of course. 

At first glance, the young lady in today’s picture seems to be reading a dictionary. 

Don’t be too hasty to make a decision, though.

Remember, you can’t judge a book by its cover.

If she is reading a dictionary, we may want to judge that she is highly intelligent, a boring person to be around or both.

I mean, what kind of person reads a dictionary? 

You see, here we judge her when we only have one picture of her in which she appears to be reading a dictionary. 

Maybe she can’t read English. 

Just because she has an English dictionary doesn’t mean she speaks English – she could be a Polish English learner. 


Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test 

This post is understandable by someone with at least a 7th-grade education (age 12).   

On the Flesch-Kincaid reading-ease test, this post scores 74.   

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



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