Loose Cannons Red Herrings and Other Lost Metaphors

Sprednja platnica
W. W. Norton & Company, 31. jul. 2001 - 256 strani
A colorful compendium of everyday words and phrases and where they originated.

The English language is a treasury of splendid mysteries, among them the many words and phrases whose origins we no longer know. Often the original meaning was literal, pertaining to forgotten objects or activities—such as "aftermath," which once meant the grass that sprang up after a farmer had mowed a field. With the informal scholarship and good-humored wit that are his trademarks, Robert Claiborne reveals the wonders buried in our speech, vivid images of people and customs of the past. As the reader soon discovers, they are "a sort of hidden poetry that can heighten the colors and sharpen the meanings of words and phrases that we read or write daily."

Iz vsebine knjige

Druge izdaje - Prikaži vse

Pogosti izrazi in povedi

Priljubljeni odlomki

Stran 6 - ... a sincere welcome into the society of free nations under institutions of her own choosing; and, more than a welcome, assistance also of every kind that she may need and may herself desire. The treatment accorded Russia by her sister nations in the months to come will be the acid test of their good will, of their comprehension of her needs as distinguished from their own interests, and of their intelligent and unselfish sympathy.

O avtorju (2001)

The late Robert Claiborne was a longtime editor and writer and the author of a number of books on words and language.

Bibliografski podatki