Why You Say It: The Fascinating Stories Behind Over 600 Everyday Words and Phrases

By Andrew Lang, Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang, Joan Lang, Andrew & Aiken

Book Overview

Are you more likely .. . to take the bull by the horns or beat around the bush? Don't let anyone call you on the carpet for failing to put your best foot forward. That would be a bitter pill to swallow. In the long run, it's easier to just bite the bullet and get your ducks in a row. After all, nobody likes the taste of humble pie. You've likely uttered at least one of these adages within the last week, but have you ever stopped to consider where such conversational staples originated? Why You Say It reveals the backstory of more than six hundred words and phrases that pepper our everyday dialogue. This catalog of our language's most colorful expressions delivers an illuminating read for anyone curious about the evolution of words. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1567313051
• ISBN13: 9781567313055
• Release Date: January 2000
• Publisher: MJF Books
• Length: 356 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.6" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Why you say it - Review

Great book for anyone who wants to know where sayings come from. Gives you an explanation of how the saying is used and where the saying originated from. Missing a few saying but has a lot you may not even know about.

Read between the lines

Language is a tricky thing. Its development is fluid and often lost in the mists of time. Why do we say what we say? Words have origins that are sometimes traced readily, but at other times defy explanation. This is often even more true of sayings and expressions. It can seem a veritable pandemonium. By the way, where do we get the term pandemonium? If it sounds Latinate to you, you're on the right track, but in fact...

Why say why?

This book is full of explanations and origins to over 600 words and phrases used in modern English. Unlike many books that examine the origins of words, this book is easy to read and is highly entertaining. Anyone who enjoys trivia will love this and even for those who don't, it's an enjoyable read nonetheless.

"Why you say it" is a great trivia resource

If you want to know the origins of 'Once in a blue moon' or 'Here mud in your eye' or countless other phases and words, this is the book for you. The book is a very entertaining resource full of the mundane and arcane roots of common phrases. This is truly the stuff in which trivia games are made.