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Mad hatter . . . pie in the sky . . . egg on your face. We use these phrases every day, yet how many of us know what they really mean or where they came from?
From bringing home the bacon to leaving no stone unturned, the English language is peppered with hundreds of common idioms borrowed from ancient traditions and civilizations throughout the world. In Red Herrings and White Elephants, Albert Jack has uncovered the amazing and sometimes downright bizarre stories behind many of our most familiar and eccentric modes of expression:
If you happen to be a bootlegger, your profession recalls the Wild West outlaws who sold illegal alcohol by concealing slender bottles of whiskey in their boots. If you're on cloud nine, you owe a nod to the American Weather Bureau's classification of clouds, the ninth topping out all others at a mountainous 40,000 feet. If you opt for the hair of the dog the morning after, you're following the advice of medieval English doctors, who recommended rubbing the hair of a dog into the wound left by the animal's bite.
A delightful compendium of anecdotes on everything from minding your p's and q's to pulling out all the stops, Red Herrings and White Elephants is an essential handbook for language-lovers of all ages.
| Price | Condition | Delivery | Seller | Action |
| $99.99 | Digital |
| WonderClub |
Steve Cristofaro
reviewed Red Herrings and White Elephants: The Origins of the Phrases We Use Everyday on August 09, 2011
Red Herrings and White Elephants
Somewhere here, i believe, i saw this book/writing/words and took note. i am now tending to it and i enjoy it...a kind of look-see at idiom...so many that are nautical, which is nice. beep beep.
this makes a good bathroom reader...early morning...or whenever you are regular.
lots of interesting stuff here...lots of history...stuff you might read in the oed only more info here. where word phrases came from.
big thumbs up.
i especially liked the red herrings thingy...as apparently, there were...fox-lovers, for lack of a better word, way back when....and white elephants...because that was the title of my first novel, one that i lost on greyhound...or greyhound lost for me...and paid me $32601 for....
yay! boy howdy!
it was my zip code at the time. yes.
see...i had to submit some form for the lost luggage--my seabag, may it do you fine--and the end result of my calculations....$200 and some odd dollars for holy shorts, a poor selection of xmas presents (sue me, or confine me to hell) and some odds and ends...i assigned no dollar amount to my manuscript...
long and short is...the white elephants resides, i suspect, in fort knox..as that was one of two possible likelys the bus passed through...
all hail our men in uniform...they can do no wrong...but when a jar full of pennies in a seabag tempts them...all bets are off. I hope the subsequent cutting of the lock lead to at least a couple free beers for some...circa...sheesh, when was it? 1986? yes.
reagonomics. no double dippers.
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Add Red Herrings and White Elephants: The Origins of the Phrases We Use Everyday, Mad hatter . . . pie in the sky . . . egg on your face. We use these phrases every day, yet how many of us know what they really mean or where they came from? From bringing home the bacon to leaving no stone unturned, the English language, Red Herrings and White Elephants: The Origins of the Phrases We Use Everyday to the inventory that you are selling on WonderClubX
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Add Red Herrings and White Elephants: The Origins of the Phrases We Use Everyday, Mad hatter . . . pie in the sky . . . egg on your face. We use these phrases every day, yet how many of us know what they really mean or where they came from? From bringing home the bacon to leaving no stone unturned, the English language, Red Herrings and White Elephants: The Origins of the Phrases We Use Everyday to your collection on WonderClub |