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Don’t play the silly bugger in front of your mates! Take a deep dive into British language and culture with this “hilarious and entertaining” reference (Chicago Tribune).
Brits and Americans dress the same, eat at the same chain restaurants, and pass music back and forth across the Atlantic, and our national leaders are practically conjoined twins. But the second the Brits open their mouths, all bets...
Brits and Americans dress the same, eat at the same chain restaurants, and pass music back and forth across the Atlantic, and our national leaders are practically conjoined twins. But the second the Brits open their mouths, all bets...
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An alphabetical listing of common figures of speech, along with their definitions and origins. Cat got your tongue? Penny for your thoughts? Come again? Every day, idioms bring color to our speech. Since they don't really mean what they say, idioms can stump even the native English-speaker. Marvin Terban makes understanding idioms "as easy as pie" with the revised Scholastic Dictionary Of Idioms. Explanations for, and origins of, more than 700 everyday...
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Discusses those "verbal fossils" that remain embedded in our national conversation long after the topic they refer to has galloped off into the sunset. Mrs. Robinson, Edsel, "Catch-22", Gangbusters, "Alphonse and Gaston", or "Where's the beef?" are just a few of the "retroterms" that can be found in this word-lover's store of trivia and obscure references.
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From apian (like a bee) to zodiac (little-animals circle), a word book that spots the animal origins of words and names
There are mice in your muscles, and blackbirds in your merlot. Behind adulation is a dog's wagging tail. Peculiar houses a herd of cattle. Grubby is crawling with bugs. Wordhound Martha Barnette collects more than 300 common (and a few not-so-common) words that have surprising animal roots. Tracing word origins back to ancient...
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1,000 food-related terms and expressions, ranging from old chestnut to red herring to fruitcake to couch potato. What has "ham" to do with overacting? Why does "nut" stand for a man's head and his gonads? Why do we say "Holy mackerel?" Quotations abound, from 4000 B.C. to the present. This book is addressed to foodies and word lovers.
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Some 600 words and phrases from the world of sports that are now part of the vernacular. Terms from baseball, boxing, football, basketball, hockey, cricket and rugby pepper the English language, whether the subject is war (a maneuver in the Gulf War was called a "hail Mary play") to love (she's on the rebound). Baseball has given us southpaw, go to bat, coming out of left field, playing hardball. Boxers had to go the distance unless they were saved...
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This new edition of McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions offers complete definitions of more than 12,000 slang and informal expressions from various sources, ranging from golden oldies such as... golden oldie, to recent coinages like shizzle (gangsta), jonx (Wall Street), and ping (the Internet). Each entry is followed by examples illustrating how an expression is used in everyday conversation and, where necessary,...