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Reader question: Please explain this headline, particularly “object lesson”: Beyoncé’s Lemonade is an object lesson in collaboration (TheGuardian.com, April 28, 2016). My comments: In other words, Lemonade, the new album by American pop singer Beyoncé is a real example on collaboration, how people should work together to get something great done. Obviously Lemonade is a great piece of work, from what they’re saying on the Internet. Sometimes, when one’s name and recognition are as great as that Beyoncé, one feels that they don’t need other people any more, that they can do everything by themselves. Not Beyoncé. She continues to work with others to enhance her work and art. At any rate, that’s what we read from a headline like that, “an object lesson in collaboration”. Literally, an object lesson is a lesson told through using an object – or real example of a person or event. The importance of collaboration, or co-operation with others, is something abstract, something we cannot hold in our palm, so to speak, and therefore, something difficult to teach. It’s the same as teaching a young person to be patient and frugal and usually that’s something they do not care to hear. However, if you use an example, of someone who, say, wins the lottery but squanders the money in a week and ends up poorer than before, perhaps they will listen. | 
