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Spilling the Beans on the Cat's Pyjamas: Popular Expressions - What They Mean and Where We Got Them.
Why is it a good thing to be the bee's knees? How does one become as keen as mustard? And what are people really doing when they see a man about a dog? The origins of a wide range of curious quips and are unveiled in this delightful reference. The meanings of even the most nonsensical phrases are also provided in context.
192 pages, Paperback
First published September 10, 2009
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 59 reviews
March 4, 2015
This book contains a vast array of English expression and their meaning and origin. As always with books of these kind, some are really interesting while other you do not really care you. Languages are infinite and we tend to use the same words over and over again ergo this is not a book to really learn much English (chances are you'll end up using from now on three expression you learn from this book and no more) but to get to know how it got there. Me being a language geek, I enjoy learning that expression that didn't make any sense, actually has a logic behind it. It's also funny to relate them to Spanish, my mother tongue; some are very similar and it's nice to know that languages can be very different but also very very similar, because in the end, we are all humans and we do think alike.
This a read-one-a-day book, otherwise you'll get really tired of it soon.
This a read-one-a-day book, otherwise you'll get really tired of it soon.
January 12, 2020
I think the concept of this book is just brilliant but unfortunately I found that it wasn’t written that well and it was very drawn out! It’s a shame as the idea behind it is fantastic!
September 18, 2020
Deyimler bana çocukluğumdan beri ilginç gelir. İlk kim söylemiştir bu tuhaf kelime öbeğini, nasıl olmuş da dile yerleşmiştir? Parkinson’un kitabı İngilizce deyimleri alfabetik olarak toplayıp tarihsel ve kültürel kaynaklarını alıntılıyor. Her dilde olduğu gibi, İngilizcede de çok hoş deyimler var, örneğin;
“No news is good news”: Yeni bir bilgi yoksa, endişelenmeye de gerek yok. 16. Yüzyılda kral dördüncü James’in bir mektubuna kadar geriye izini sürmüş yazar bu sözün.
Bazen karmaşık bir anlamı bir deyimle bir anda anlatabilme dürtüsü hissediyorum. Tam konuya uygun bir fıkra anlatma dürtüsünün bir benzeri gibi. Öyle bir deyim olacak ki, cuk oturacak. Bu kitabı A’dan Z’ye okumama rağmen bu yeteneğimde pek bir ilerleme yokmuş gibi geliyor gene de. Sanırım bu hazırcevaplık Allah vergisi.
Bir keçiboynuzu tadı veren bu kitaba o yüzden üç yıldız.
“No news is good news”: Yeni bir bilgi yoksa, endişelenmeye de gerek yok. 16. Yüzyılda kral dördüncü James’in bir mektubuna kadar geriye izini sürmüş yazar bu sözün.
Bazen karmaşık bir anlamı bir deyimle bir anda anlatabilme dürtüsü hissediyorum. Tam konuya uygun bir fıkra anlatma dürtüsünün bir benzeri gibi. Öyle bir deyim olacak ki, cuk oturacak. Bu kitabı A’dan Z’ye okumama rağmen bu yeteneğimde pek bir ilerleme yokmuş gibi geliyor gene de. Sanırım bu hazırcevaplık Allah vergisi.
Bir keçiboynuzu tadı veren bu kitaba o yüzden üç yıldız.
November 28, 2010
Have you ever wondered exactly where some of our more common phrases come from? Judy Parkinson sets out to give a brief definition and history of some colorful, common English sayings.
I found this book interesting and I learned a lot. For example, "Put a sock in it!" comes from the days of the old gramophones. They didn't have volume controls, so to turn the record player down, owners would put a sock inside the bell the sound emerged from.
While I did enjoy learning the meaning behind some of these sayings, I have to say that the definitions were a bit dry. Take this definition of "shoot the moon": "This is an expression meaning to leave without paying one's bills or rent, or to remove swiftly one's household goods under cover of night to avoid their seizure by a landlord or creditor." This seemed like a good place to have a little fun or lighten the tone, but instead it felt more like a scholarly work. This is a short little book at 169 pages, so I wasn't expecting the scholarly tone.
This is an interesting look at some of the origins of our language, and I recommend it for those curious about such things. Christmas is coming up, and I think this would make a good stocking stuffer if you have any lovers of language in your life.
Thanks to the publicist for sending me a copy for review.
I found this book interesting and I learned a lot. For example, "Put a sock in it!" comes from the days of the old gramophones. They didn't have volume controls, so to turn the record player down, owners would put a sock inside the bell the sound emerged from.
While I did enjoy learning the meaning behind some of these sayings, I have to say that the definitions were a bit dry. Take this definition of "shoot the moon": "This is an expression meaning to leave without paying one's bills or rent, or to remove swiftly one's household goods under cover of night to avoid their seizure by a landlord or creditor." This seemed like a good place to have a little fun or lighten the tone, but instead it felt more like a scholarly work. This is a short little book at 169 pages, so I wasn't expecting the scholarly tone.
This is an interesting look at some of the origins of our language, and I recommend it for those curious about such things. Christmas is coming up, and I think this would make a good stocking stuffer if you have any lovers of language in your life.
Thanks to the publicist for sending me a copy for review.
March 21, 2021
This was an easy read to while away an afternoon. I learnt where several expressions originated and was reminded of many others. Many I often pepper my own conversations with. This small volume appealed to immensely particularly as I read many classics where some of this expressions may feature.
June 18, 2022
Have you ever wondered where certain popular sayings came from and what was their original meaning? Well, here's a collection of them - mostly from the British point of view as many of them I never recognized although the author does include America meanings and/or origins.
So let's start with the title -
Spilling the Beans means to tell all , giving away a secret and there are several explanations from an euphemism for vomiting (ugh) to the practice in ancient Greece of using black and white colored beans dropping into a jar or helmet to vote on an issue so spilling the beans would reveal the result.
The cats pajamas was an Americanism describing someone top-notch or "superlative" in the 1920's but it also is suggested to be attributed to a early 19th-century tailor known for his superb fine silk pajamas.
Some are fun. Some are quite ancient being drawn from lines in the Christian Bible as well as ancient Greek and Roman history and literature (any one recall the Aesop fable about the fox and the grapes where the phrase 'sour grapes' likely came from?). Some are just plain odd - being on cloud nine was when the U.S. Weather Bureau classified clouds into nine classes and the ninth class was that of cumulonimbus or the clouds that rise high into the atmosphere.
Then there is attempting to 'Keep Up with the Joneses' which was the title of a newspaper cartoon in the early 1900's about living beyond the writers' means in a prosperous neighborhood and eventually discovering that the neighbors were attempting to keep up with him.
It's a fun read and as nearly all of the phrases are a page or less, this is an easy book to set aside and return to without losing track of the plot - there isn't any. And the simple line drawing can be amusing as well. Parkinson sprinkled multiple sayings throughout her foreword but I won't even attempt to do the same.
2022-134
So let's start with the title -
Spilling the Beans means to tell all , giving away a secret and there are several explanations from an euphemism for vomiting (ugh) to the practice in ancient Greece of using black and white colored beans dropping into a jar or helmet to vote on an issue so spilling the beans would reveal the result.
The cats pajamas was an Americanism describing someone top-notch or "superlative" in the 1920's but it also is suggested to be attributed to a early 19th-century tailor known for his superb fine silk pajamas.
Some are fun. Some are quite ancient being drawn from lines in the Christian Bible as well as ancient Greek and Roman history and literature (any one recall the Aesop fable about the fox and the grapes where the phrase 'sour grapes' likely came from?). Some are just plain odd - being on cloud nine was when the U.S. Weather Bureau classified clouds into nine classes and the ninth class was that of cumulonimbus or the clouds that rise high into the atmosphere.
Then there is attempting to 'Keep Up with the Joneses' which was the title of a newspaper cartoon in the early 1900's about living beyond the writers' means in a prosperous neighborhood and eventually discovering that the neighbors were attempting to keep up with him.
It's a fun read and as nearly all of the phrases are a page or less, this is an easy book to set aside and return to without losing track of the plot - there isn't any. And the simple line drawing can be amusing as well. Parkinson sprinkled multiple sayings throughout her foreword but I won't even attempt to do the same.
2022-134
March 29, 2019
I absolutely love books like this, so when I saw this book at a local charity shop, I had to buy it straightaway. Lots of the phrases used are ones that virtually every English speaking country uses and others were strictly Brittish expressions. It was very elightening and humours to learn the historical facts behind these sayings and how they came into general usage.
May 18, 2014
A bit of a nothing book - no doubt easily put together from plenty of existing sources with some reasonable illustrations. The explanations are interesting enough, although some seem fanciful and many I already knew.
My favourite snippets that I didn't already know ....
"To Come up to Scratch"
In the days of prize fighting, under London Prize Ring Rules, introduced in 1839, a round ended when a fighter was knocked down. After 30 seconds rest each fighter than had 8 seconds to return to a point in the middle of the ring marked by a scratch. If one couldn't manage that, he hadn't "come up to scratch" and was declared the loser.
"The curate's egg"
Now means something that's both good and bad in parts, but was originally an egg that was bad, fed to a new curate by the Bishop which the curate ate saying it was good because he was too mild-mannered to say it was off. So originally something bad that was claimed to be good out of politeness.
"Hoist by his own Petard"
Of course comes from Hamlet, but a petard in 1600 was a newly invented explosive device: a metal bell-shaped grenade fillwed with gunpowder and used to blow up barricades and walls. Sometimes the fuse went off too early and the engineer was thus blown up (of lifted off his feet, or hoist) by his own bomb. Also, interestingly, the word Petard comes from the latin "petare" which means to fart, so make of that what you will
"Put a sock in it"
this phrase harks back to the early days of the gramophone, which was just a metal horn and thus no volume controls. Therefore the only was to reduce the volume from a gramophone was to literally, put a sock in it (the horn). I loved this one, it was my favourite in the whole book.
"To be on Skid Row"
From the early days of logging in North America and Canada - a skid row was a row of tree trunks laid on the slopes leading down to the river. The later trees could then be felled on here and they'd slide down to the river themselves without extra labour ready for transportation - because it sounds like a street, Skid Row was taken to mean the lowest of the low, the place where everything tramples on top of you.
So, as I say, not a lot to it and one of those books that's pretty easily put together for publishers, but an interesting read as a bathroom book though.
My favourite snippets that I didn't already know ....
"To Come up to Scratch"
In the days of prize fighting, under London Prize Ring Rules, introduced in 1839, a round ended when a fighter was knocked down. After 30 seconds rest each fighter than had 8 seconds to return to a point in the middle of the ring marked by a scratch. If one couldn't manage that, he hadn't "come up to scratch" and was declared the loser.
"The curate's egg"
Now means something that's both good and bad in parts, but was originally an egg that was bad, fed to a new curate by the Bishop which the curate ate saying it was good because he was too mild-mannered to say it was off. So originally something bad that was claimed to be good out of politeness.
"Hoist by his own Petard"
Of course comes from Hamlet, but a petard in 1600 was a newly invented explosive device: a metal bell-shaped grenade fillwed with gunpowder and used to blow up barricades and walls. Sometimes the fuse went off too early and the engineer was thus blown up (of lifted off his feet, or hoist) by his own bomb. Also, interestingly, the word Petard comes from the latin "petare" which means to fart, so make of that what you will
"Put a sock in it"
this phrase harks back to the early days of the gramophone, which was just a metal horn and thus no volume controls. Therefore the only was to reduce the volume from a gramophone was to literally, put a sock in it (the horn). I loved this one, it was my favourite in the whole book.
"To be on Skid Row"
From the early days of logging in North America and Canada - a skid row was a row of tree trunks laid on the slopes leading down to the river. The later trees could then be felled on here and they'd slide down to the river themselves without extra labour ready for transportation - because it sounds like a street, Skid Row was taken to mean the lowest of the low, the place where everything tramples on top of you.
So, as I say, not a lot to it and one of those books that's pretty easily put together for publishers, but an interesting read as a bathroom book though.
April 27, 2011
Much drier and less informative than I was hoping.
October 25, 2019
I hadn’t heard of a lot of the sayings in this book, but it was interesting. I actually wish there was more detail to the origins of most of the sayings.
January 1, 2021
I think a lot of avid readers find they like interesting facts about etymology and historical use of words and phrases, and this book delivered that, but generally, reading phrase after phrase doesn’t make for compelling reading. Interesting, absolutely, but fell short on being unputdownable. I found I enjoyed this book best when I read a couple of pages at a time and came back to it, rather than aiming for completion. Personally, it would have made for more captivating reading if it was grouped with regards to the origins, for example, naval/army sayings etc, and had more of a way to tie each one to another.
I also found some sayings seemed more relevant than others, and that had a huge reason with how much I wanted to continue.
All in all the book’s great if you’re interested in this kind of thing, but I wouldn’t hedge my bets on it being consistently enthralling.
I also found some sayings seemed more relevant than others, and that had a huge reason with how much I wanted to continue.
All in all the book’s great if you’re interested in this kind of thing, but I wouldn’t hedge my bets on it being consistently enthralling.
July 20, 2023
I loved this book! Whenever I have heard an unusual expression that even I have used time and time again, I wonder where it comes from. Like, ‘Don’t swing your cat around’ who would ever do that? Or ‘crocodile tears’ what’s fake tears got to do with crocodiles? My never ending curiosity would always ask why? How do these unusual phrases make it’s way into the English language. Then I came across this book and thought, now here’s an author after my own heart! I loved this book and I’m going to try and use some of these phrases and even bring up their origin stories up in everyday conversation. It just makes you realise the real importance of being a writer and a poet. We have the power to contribute to the evolution of the human language and that’s pretty special. :) This really was the cats pyjamas haha!
October 29, 2025
This book was a lot of fun to dip into for a few pages each night, and I certainly learned a few things about the expressions I use day-to-day, as well as learning some new ones all together. It was a nice casual read but I didn’t find it to be show-stopping.
So many passages in this book begging with ‘ this possibly means...’ I understand that it’s hard to pinpoint the exact source of every phrase, but it feels like these instances could have been omitted from a collection which is supposed to be a dictionary of phrases. Many of the ‘possibly’s in this book felt like complete bounds, and the hedging in Parkinson’s writing loses her the authority and command that a non-fiction book like this benefits from us. She seems as clueless as us at times!
Overall, this really isn’t a huge deal. The book is a bit of fun, and honestly harmless!
So many passages in this book begging with ‘ this possibly means...’ I understand that it’s hard to pinpoint the exact source of every phrase, but it feels like these instances could have been omitted from a collection which is supposed to be a dictionary of phrases. Many of the ‘possibly’s in this book felt like complete bounds, and the hedging in Parkinson’s writing loses her the authority and command that a non-fiction book like this benefits from us. She seems as clueless as us at times!
Overall, this really isn’t a huge deal. The book is a bit of fun, and honestly harmless!
March 8, 2022
This was a fun little read. Most of the info here I knew already, but I did learn a few things that were new to me and got a laugh out of several entries. It was a gift from my parents who know I love words and their origins. You could probably find this same info online somewhere, but it's fun to have it all in one place to use for reference.
September 4, 2023
I thought most snippets were a perfectly sized portion. The etymology behind some of these phrases are so old, it’s hard to fully flush them out. I do wish that there were more details, but I can’t say how possible that would be. Fascinating book and I can use these idioms with even more vigor than before knowing some of their historical context.
December 28, 2018
Needed citations and sources. Some of them seem not well researched. Also, if you leave out biblical, Shakespearean, and nautical phrases, this book would be a pamphlet. Take out boxing and wrestling and you have about a notecard worth of info.
March 3, 2021
Some quite interesting facts
I like learning about where words and phrases come from so found it interesting. Some of the phrases I was hoping for definitive answer of where they come from but it was a possibility of where it came from
I like learning about where words and phrases come from so found it interesting. Some of the phrases I was hoping for definitive answer of where they come from but it was a possibility of where it came from
December 26, 2017
A lot of fun for those who find etymology interesting.
February 5, 2018
Sharon 2018
June 19, 2018
Interesting book, I learned a lot about the etymology of phrases.
April 24, 2020
Learning the origins and meanings of popular expressions is a favorite subject of mine. This little book was very dryly written, however, and it didn't hold my interest.
January 14, 2021
The bees knees of a book.
August 11, 2021
Learned a lot, but wasn't an easy read - not sure you could make it an easy read, tbh.
August 30, 2021
Some expressions are useful, but some weird and unnecessary
September 22, 2022
OK but not the most interesting book on this subject. A quick read.
January 17, 2024
Does pretty much what it says on the tin.
Apart from tell you about that specific tin.
Apart from tell you about that specific tin.
March 4, 2024
Informative, hilarious and educational read. Had to re-read sections because I didn't believe it the first time. Well worth keeping it in you bag for appointments and idle moments.
February 1, 2025
A varied collection of saying common and obscure.
She gives a clear meaning and history of sayings.
A good simple read.
She gives a clear meaning and history of sayings.
A good simple read.
June 30, 2025
A useful compendium of some of our better known, inherited sayings. I have read better examples.
September 27, 2021
It's not very detailed and includes a few long-debunked canards (how did anybody ever seriously think cannonballs would be stacked on a brass plate onboard a warship?!) but its bright and breezy style and inclusion of a few lesser spotted examples make it worth a look. Not exactly scholarly but a decent bog read nevertheless.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 59 reviews