present company excluded

present company excluded

Without regards to the person or people in one's immediate vicinity. Everyone in this school is a self-centered, spoiled little brat. Present company excluded, of course. Present company excluded, there isn't a single person in this building who has the skills it takes to run the business.
See also: company, exclude, present
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.
See also:
  • present company excepted
  • sink to new depths
  • I'm all right, Jack
  • there's no I in team
  • sink to such depths
  • stoop so low
  • sink so low
  • A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small bundle
References in periodicals archive
The Irish official smiled amiably and waved his arm out to some unspecified country far, far away in the body-language equivalent of 'present company excluded, of course'.
Carrying on like a precocious teen head over heels in puppy love, the 18-year-old Texas native coos, "I, I love you like a love song baby/And I keep hittin' repeat, peat, peat, peat, peat, peat." With a husky voice that is more appealing than her Disney contemporaries, Gomez gives enough of a sexy allure to attract the trench coat-clad dirty old men (present company excluded) while still appealing to her pint-size, pajama-clad crowd still wearing rubber pants.
Hilarious one-liners make up the titles of many pieces: "Present Company Excluded, of Course ...
But now, with a lot of the capital markets drying up for dot-commers, you're not going to see a lot of IPOs -- present company excluded. The old adage about Downtown is that it's last on the bus and first off the bus.
"We made proactive decisions to avert disaster, not like some third-world country that spends every last penny available and ends up at the mercy of its lenders." The Irish official smiled amiably and waved his arm out to some unspecified country far, far away in the body-language equivalent of 'present company excluded, of course'.