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Red Herrings and White Elephants: The Origins of the Phrases We Use Every Day
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 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.
272 pages, Hardcover
First published October 8, 2004
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About the author
Albert Jack
94 books38 followersAlbert Jack, pen name for Graham Willmott, is an international best-selling author and historian. He is an expert in explaining the unexplained and has appeared on live television shows and has made thousands of radio appearances worldwide.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 69 reviews
March 21, 2022
From this book:
As bold as brass is applied to anyone with the courage of their conviction and not afraid to be seen either succeeding or failing. It is recorded that the phrase dates back to the late 1770s and refers to a London magistrate called Brass Crosby. At the time...
From wordhistories.net:
Aided by the alliteration in b (bold – brass), the phrase (as) bold as brass arose from a long-established figurative use of the noun brass, sometimes in association with the adjective bold.
For many centuries, brass has been taken as a type of hardness, imperishableness, insensibility, etc.; for example, the Book of Job, 6:12, is as follows in the Later Version (1395) of the Wycliffe Bible:...
It is popularly—but erroneously—claimed that the phrase (as) bold as brass originally referred to Brass Crosby (1725-93), Lord Mayor of London.
For example, according to this website, Brass released in 1770 a newspaper editor who had illegally published the day’s business in Parliament. As Brass had gone against the wishes of Parliament, he was thrown in the Tower of London, but, when he was brought to trial, several judges refused to hear the case and, after protests from the public, he was released.
For that reason, says that ludicrous theory, bold as Brass became a common saying…
********************************
From this book:
If you are dressed in your Best Bib and Tucker you are wearing your finest outfit, your Sunday best. In the 17th century it was common for all society men to wear fashionable bibs to protect their morning and dinner suits from spills. The women wore...
From dictionary.com
One's finest clothes, dressed up, as in The men were told to put on their best bib and tucker for the dinner dance. Although wearing either a bib (frill at front of a man's shirt) or a tucker (ornamental lace covering a woman's neck and shoulders) is obsolete, the phrase survives.
From phrases.org.uk:
This term originated not in any figurative sense but literally - both bibs and tuckers were items of women's clothing from the 17th to late 19th centuries.
Early bibs were somewhat like modern day bibs, although they weren't specifically used to protect clothes from spilled food as they are now. Tuckers were lace pieces...
**************************************
From this book:
If something is Too Dicey it is considered to be risky or dubious and should be treated with great caution. The BBC's Antiques Roadshow suggested an origin for this phrase in May 1999 when a presenter was given an antique map to value. He explained to the owner that there was once a crooked map-seller who, in the 1800s, used old and worn map plates to print new copies onto old paper and sell them on as original antiques. The map seller was called Mr Dicey and when he was caught and punished the phrase entered the language as a byword for anything that could not be relied upon.
From word-detective.com:
“Dicey,” the story went, originated among Royal Air Force (RAF) pilots during World War II. When the weather at their home fields was too bad to permit landing when returning from a mission, they would fly north to an airfield called Dice, where the skies were almost always clear. Thus bad weather came to be known as “Dicey,” a term later expanded to describe anything risky.
Two bits of that story are true. “Dicey” did begin as RAF slang during WWII. And, as Bill P. discovered in his research, there is indeed a “Dice” airfield at Aberdeen, Scotland, evidently known for its clear weather.
But the roots of “dicey” lie, not in the clouds, but on the gambling tables (or the floor of an RAF hangar). “Dicey” comes from “dice,” the plural of “die,” the little spotted cubes of chance used in many games. A mission that was “dicey” to the RAF pilots was fraught with danger, and their safe return was as uncertain as a roll of the dice they often used to pass their time on the ground. This sense of both chance and danger has carried over to our modern use of “dicey” to mean “seriously risky,” often with overtones of disaster if the effort fails.
************************************
So, more than one possible derivation for some of the phrases in this book. I didn't try to look up most of them; I accepted Albert Jack's explanation for many of them. Jack's explication of the three above (among others) seemed to me to be unlikely, so I checked on them. I suspect that Jack is mistaken about these.
"Bold as brass": Brass is hard, brass is shiny, brass is eye-catching. Brass is, in a word, bold. Is the word "brazen," originally meaning made of brass but now also meaning "bold and without shame" supposed to be just coincidental and having nothing to do with the origin of this phrase?
"Bib and tucker": "In the 17th century it was common for all society men to wear fashionable bibs to protect their morning and dinner suits from spills." Really? "Fashionable bibs" for evening wear? Did they have pictures of lobsters or perhaps fuzzy yellow ducklings, as bibs might now? This could be true, but it does sound ridiculous. I am aware, though, that the two examples I gave for other possible explanations do not agree with each other, which is the reason I included both of them.
"Dicey": From some Mr. Dicey. I doubt it. The derivation from "dice" just sounds much more plausible.
Jack's derivation for "his name is mud" is a common one but is definitely incorrect and I doubt that Jack's explanation for "dead ringer" is accurate. On the other hand, I was sure that Jack's explanation for "cock and bull" was...well, cock and bull. It seems to be the accepted derivation, however.
A totally different issue: For "blonde bombshell," Jack states that actress Jean Harlow was "mistress of the one-line witticism." I can't think of any such witticisms associated with Harlow; I suspect that Jack was thinking of a different blonde actress, Mae West.
As others have noted, some of the words or phrases discussed are very specifically British. Knowing the derivation of the word "berk" makes me happy that this is not much used in the United States.
The illustrations by Ama Page are unimpressive. I do like the one for "blonde bombshell." The illustration by Ryan Heshka for the book jacket for the 2004 HarperCollins hardcover edition is much better than most of the pictures by Page.
The book is, for the most part, fun to read - especially if the reader is not interested in accuracy.
As bold as brass is applied to anyone with the courage of their conviction and not afraid to be seen either succeeding or failing. It is recorded that the phrase dates back to the late 1770s and refers to a London magistrate called Brass Crosby. At the time...
From wordhistories.net:
Aided by the alliteration in b (bold – brass), the phrase (as) bold as brass arose from a long-established figurative use of the noun brass, sometimes in association with the adjective bold.
For many centuries, brass has been taken as a type of hardness, imperishableness, insensibility, etc.; for example, the Book of Job, 6:12, is as follows in the Later Version (1395) of the Wycliffe Bible:...
It is popularly—but erroneously—claimed that the phrase (as) bold as brass originally referred to Brass Crosby (1725-93), Lord Mayor of London.
For example, according to this website, Brass released in 1770 a newspaper editor who had illegally published the day’s business in Parliament. As Brass had gone against the wishes of Parliament, he was thrown in the Tower of London, but, when he was brought to trial, several judges refused to hear the case and, after protests from the public, he was released.
For that reason, says that ludicrous theory, bold as Brass became a common saying…
********************************
From this book:
If you are dressed in your Best Bib and Tucker you are wearing your finest outfit, your Sunday best. In the 17th century it was common for all society men to wear fashionable bibs to protect their morning and dinner suits from spills. The women wore...
From dictionary.com
One's finest clothes, dressed up, as in The men were told to put on their best bib and tucker for the dinner dance. Although wearing either a bib (frill at front of a man's shirt) or a tucker (ornamental lace covering a woman's neck and shoulders) is obsolete, the phrase survives.
From phrases.org.uk:
This term originated not in any figurative sense but literally - both bibs and tuckers were items of women's clothing from the 17th to late 19th centuries.
Early bibs were somewhat like modern day bibs, although they weren't specifically used to protect clothes from spilled food as they are now. Tuckers were lace pieces...
**************************************
From this book:
If something is Too Dicey it is considered to be risky or dubious and should be treated with great caution. The BBC's Antiques Roadshow suggested an origin for this phrase in May 1999 when a presenter was given an antique map to value. He explained to the owner that there was once a crooked map-seller who, in the 1800s, used old and worn map plates to print new copies onto old paper and sell them on as original antiques. The map seller was called Mr Dicey and when he was caught and punished the phrase entered the language as a byword for anything that could not be relied upon.
From word-detective.com:
“Dicey,” the story went, originated among Royal Air Force (RAF) pilots during World War II. When the weather at their home fields was too bad to permit landing when returning from a mission, they would fly north to an airfield called Dice, where the skies were almost always clear. Thus bad weather came to be known as “Dicey,” a term later expanded to describe anything risky.
Two bits of that story are true. “Dicey” did begin as RAF slang during WWII. And, as Bill P. discovered in his research, there is indeed a “Dice” airfield at Aberdeen, Scotland, evidently known for its clear weather.
But the roots of “dicey” lie, not in the clouds, but on the gambling tables (or the floor of an RAF hangar). “Dicey” comes from “dice,” the plural of “die,” the little spotted cubes of chance used in many games. A mission that was “dicey” to the RAF pilots was fraught with danger, and their safe return was as uncertain as a roll of the dice they often used to pass their time on the ground. This sense of both chance and danger has carried over to our modern use of “dicey” to mean “seriously risky,” often with overtones of disaster if the effort fails.
************************************
So, more than one possible derivation for some of the phrases in this book. I didn't try to look up most of them; I accepted Albert Jack's explanation for many of them. Jack's explication of the three above (among others) seemed to me to be unlikely, so I checked on them. I suspect that Jack is mistaken about these.
"Bold as brass": Brass is hard, brass is shiny, brass is eye-catching. Brass is, in a word, bold. Is the word "brazen," originally meaning made of brass but now also meaning "bold and without shame" supposed to be just coincidental and having nothing to do with the origin of this phrase?
"Bib and tucker": "In the 17th century it was common for all society men to wear fashionable bibs to protect their morning and dinner suits from spills." Really? "Fashionable bibs" for evening wear? Did they have pictures of lobsters or perhaps fuzzy yellow ducklings, as bibs might now? This could be true, but it does sound ridiculous. I am aware, though, that the two examples I gave for other possible explanations do not agree with each other, which is the reason I included both of them.
"Dicey": From some Mr. Dicey. I doubt it. The derivation from "dice" just sounds much more plausible.
Jack's derivation for "his name is mud" is a common one but is definitely incorrect and I doubt that Jack's explanation for "dead ringer" is accurate. On the other hand, I was sure that Jack's explanation for "cock and bull" was...well, cock and bull. It seems to be the accepted derivation, however.
A totally different issue: For "blonde bombshell," Jack states that actress Jean Harlow was "mistress of the one-line witticism." I can't think of any such witticisms associated with Harlow; I suspect that Jack was thinking of a different blonde actress, Mae West.
As others have noted, some of the words or phrases discussed are very specifically British. Knowing the derivation of the word "berk" makes me happy that this is not much used in the United States.
The illustrations by Ama Page are unimpressive. I do like the one for "blonde bombshell." The illustration by Ryan Heshka for the book jacket for the 2004 HarperCollins hardcover edition is much better than most of the pictures by Page.
The book is, for the most part, fun to read - especially if the reader is not interested in accuracy.
July 21, 2012
The full review is available in the following link:
http://bookunderthesun.blogspot.sg/20...
___________________________________________________________________
What does either a Red Herring (a false or misleading clue) or a White Elephant (something useless, usually pointing to public buildings, that becomes a burden, much like our country's facilities...) has anything to do with their respective meanings? Just as the foreword of the book implied, such sayings are part and parcel of the everyday English and most native speakers are familiar with them, seldom giving them a thought.
Tracing the phrases to their origins is hard work but Jack's effort revealed that most of them originated from interesting, if not unexpected, sources. Not all of the provided sources and origins are clear since most of them have evolved over the years, with their roots lost in time. In cases which the root is ambiguous, the author is nice enough to mention that, bringing up the most plausible, and in some cases the funniest, origin which he thought most likely.
It is interesting to note that most of the sayings do not even originate from the English language, and are cobbled up from Anglo-Saxon, Latin, Greek, French, Swedish, Norse (when it's raining cats and dogs or when someone went berserk), Hindustani (when someone has gone Doolally), Jewish (when you tell someone to eat his heart out) and even Gaelic (when you declared something as phoney), just to name a few.
I believe reading this book is a better way to learn the language rather than memorizing them until your brain could take no more. Pick a few of them and try to use them in your everyday conversation, if only to amuse your English speaking counterparts. You may even surprise them with a few which are rarely heard of.
Teachers of the language, especially one teaching ESL (English as a Second Language), would benefit from the book as well. At the first sign of boredom your class shows in an English course (you should be able to notice the blank looks and nodding heads), swipe Red Herring and White Elephants out and start to ask them why certain phrases are so.
Choose the most ridiculous ones or ones which meaning is almost unrelated to its phrase (I think none will catch more attention than 'to swear on your testicles'). Entertain them with the origin and its story, and watch your students swarm to your class with expectation on the next class. That will drill the language into them better than any other method.
Having said that, do be careful of using the phrases found within Red Herring & White Elephants on everyone you converse with. Some of the phrases will sound a little ridiculous, and may sound offending, especially if your listener is not familiar with it, which most likely is the case in Malaysia. However the reader could always share the phrase with native speakers of English to see if they are amused, enlightened or pleasantly surprised by you uttering it like you had spoken it all your life.
http://bookunderthesun.blogspot.sg/20...
___________________________________________________________________
What does either a Red Herring (a false or misleading clue) or a White Elephant (something useless, usually pointing to public buildings, that becomes a burden, much like our country's facilities...) has anything to do with their respective meanings? Just as the foreword of the book implied, such sayings are part and parcel of the everyday English and most native speakers are familiar with them, seldom giving them a thought.
Tracing the phrases to their origins is hard work but Jack's effort revealed that most of them originated from interesting, if not unexpected, sources. Not all of the provided sources and origins are clear since most of them have evolved over the years, with their roots lost in time. In cases which the root is ambiguous, the author is nice enough to mention that, bringing up the most plausible, and in some cases the funniest, origin which he thought most likely.
It is interesting to note that most of the sayings do not even originate from the English language, and are cobbled up from Anglo-Saxon, Latin, Greek, French, Swedish, Norse (when it's raining cats and dogs or when someone went berserk), Hindustani (when someone has gone Doolally), Jewish (when you tell someone to eat his heart out) and even Gaelic (when you declared something as phoney), just to name a few.
I believe reading this book is a better way to learn the language rather than memorizing them until your brain could take no more. Pick a few of them and try to use them in your everyday conversation, if only to amuse your English speaking counterparts. You may even surprise them with a few which are rarely heard of.
Teachers of the language, especially one teaching ESL (English as a Second Language), would benefit from the book as well. At the first sign of boredom your class shows in an English course (you should be able to notice the blank looks and nodding heads), swipe Red Herring and White Elephants out and start to ask them why certain phrases are so.
Choose the most ridiculous ones or ones which meaning is almost unrelated to its phrase (I think none will catch more attention than 'to swear on your testicles'). Entertain them with the origin and its story, and watch your students swarm to your class with expectation on the next class. That will drill the language into them better than any other method.
Having said that, do be careful of using the phrases found within Red Herring & White Elephants on everyone you converse with. Some of the phrases will sound a little ridiculous, and may sound offending, especially if your listener is not familiar with it, which most likely is the case in Malaysia. However the reader could always share the phrase with native speakers of English to see if they are amused, enlightened or pleasantly surprised by you uttering it like you had spoken it all your life.
February 8, 2023
This is a book I've dipped in & out of over a good few months. The format makes it ideal for reading this way but to be honest, I found myself skimming if I read more than a few pages at a time as I found the writing a bit unispiring. Some of the explanations are too vague & while I feel I've learnt about the origin of a few everyday phrases (although the only one that I can recall is "more than one way to skin a cat" - kitty lovers don't panic, it refers to catfish) many of them didn't seem to address the origin, merely stating the first recorded use.
For example:
Rome Wasn't Built in a Day...
"...is a phrase used to provide encouragement & patience when something is taking longer to achieve than succeed. It is an old Latin proverb dating back around the time the once greatest city in the world was built. According to legend, the architect Romulus & his twin brother Remus founded Rome in 753BC.
For research purposes I have just come back & can confirm it certainly was not built in a day. In fact it looks like they are still building it."
For me this doesn't really explain it satisfactorily. What about the info about the root of the Latin proverb? (although according to my sources the phrase comes from a collection of medieval French poems "Li Proverbe au Vilain" which was published around 1190) - & the little quip at the end... not my sense of humour.
Overall it was a bit of a disappointment.
For example:
Rome Wasn't Built in a Day...
"...is a phrase used to provide encouragement & patience when something is taking longer to achieve than succeed. It is an old Latin proverb dating back around the time the once greatest city in the world was built. According to legend, the architect Romulus & his twin brother Remus founded Rome in 753BC.
For research purposes I have just come back & can confirm it certainly was not built in a day. In fact it looks like they are still building it."
For me this doesn't really explain it satisfactorily. What about the info about the root of the Latin proverb? (although according to my sources the phrase comes from a collection of medieval French poems "Li Proverbe au Vilain" which was published around 1190) - & the little quip at the end... not my sense of humour.
Overall it was a bit of a disappointment.
December 10, 2017
Starts off really well, entertaining and engaging. There are some great explanations about frequently used sayings in there. My favourites included "winning hands down" and "to be screwed."
But there was also a fair bit of what seemed like "filler" to me, and sometimes the explanations/descriptions of the sayings didn't really shed much light on the origins at all or really weren't very interesting. I thought they could've whittled it down to the quality ones a bit more rather than trying to up the number of items but leaving the content a bit thin on the ground.
But there was also a fair bit of what seemed like "filler" to me, and sometimes the explanations/descriptions of the sayings didn't really shed much light on the origins at all or really weren't very interesting. I thought they could've whittled it down to the quality ones a bit more rather than trying to up the number of items but leaving the content a bit thin on the ground.
July 27, 2014
I was sometimes surprised at the origins of phrases, having made my own (wrong) assumptions. This is a pleasant book best suited to those who like history or linguistics and very suited to those who like history and linguistics.
August 15, 2024
Highly educational and mildly intriguing.
May 1, 2024
I found it interesting to learn the origins of so many well known sayings. I will be keeping this book for future reference.
August 12, 2011
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.
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.
April 9, 2020
Subtitle: "The Origins of the Phrases We Use Everyday".
This is a British book, and so some of the phrases were unfamiliar to me. But that's a relative few. The majority are phrases within my experience.
The origins of these phrases range from the British Navy ("groggy") and Army ("Bite the bullet" - which the author gets slightly wrong) to Cockney rhyming slang ("a load of cobbers"), from Native American terms ("warpath") to ancient Greek ("mealy-mouthed"), and many others along the way.
Some of the origins proposed seem a bit unlikely to me, but most of them make a lot of sense. A bit surprisingly, my favorite mystery phrase - "the whole nine yards" - doesn't appear here, probably because it _is_ a mystery. (Another one I'd like to know: why do we call a gullible person a "sucker"?)
It was a fun read. I learned some things, most of which I'll probably forget in a short time.
This is a British book, and so some of the phrases were unfamiliar to me. But that's a relative few. The majority are phrases within my experience.
The origins of these phrases range from the British Navy ("groggy") and Army ("Bite the bullet" - which the author gets slightly wrong) to Cockney rhyming slang ("a load of cobbers"), from Native American terms ("warpath") to ancient Greek ("mealy-mouthed"), and many others along the way.
Some of the origins proposed seem a bit unlikely to me, but most of them make a lot of sense. A bit surprisingly, my favorite mystery phrase - "the whole nine yards" - doesn't appear here, probably because it _is_ a mystery. (Another one I'd like to know: why do we call a gullible person a "sucker"?)
It was a fun read. I learned some things, most of which I'll probably forget in a short time.
September 5, 2010
This book is a great quick read that explains the origins of several popular sayings. I learned a great deal about how language evolves through these phrases, and even learned a few new British sayings. I now only hope that I can remember and repeat the origins of these phrases during conversations in order to sound intelligent and witty.
December 26, 2017
Sadly disappointing - I love words and trivia and the concept really appealed to me. Unfortunately, this book contains way too many phrases I've never heard before, and many of the explanations are a let down (unnecessary, or based on folk stories). I started skipping some parts, but not even sure I'll get close to finishing it.
August 17, 2014
Interesting book about the origins of common expressions. Useful as a reference and to demonstrate knowledge of trivia in social situationas.
November 23, 2018
The only thing I didn’t like about this book is that it should have included some sort of bibliography. It claims to be based on ‘painstaking research’, and certainly many explanations ring true, but how do we know if some cock and bull/shaggy dog stories haven’t slipped through the cracks? But I’m nitpicking. The book is very entertaining and also great for non-native English speakers as each idiom’s meaning is explained. In a nutshell, it’s the cat’s whiskers!
May 6, 2020
Had this little book for years, was brought as a present from my auntie from Australia. A great book of sayings and where they came from. Mostly English.
have looked through this a few times and read bits and pieces from it. just dug it out again now/ Thank you auntie Pat D. great book have it still with us after you buying it years ago. will never part with this.
got to reading this again as was talking about expressions . "Balls of a brass monkey"
have looked through this a few times and read bits and pieces from it. just dug it out again now/ Thank you auntie Pat D. great book have it still with us after you buying it years ago. will never part with this.
got to reading this again as was talking about expressions . "Balls of a brass monkey"
March 1, 2019
If you have even a slight interest in the history of language and phrases this book is a must read.
Even as a native English speaker there are plenty of things to learn for this book and I found myself thinking "wow, I never knew that" on many occasion.
I certainly didn't realise the true meaning of the word "berk" and apologise to anyone I have said this to in the past :)
Even as a native English speaker there are plenty of things to learn for this book and I found myself thinking "wow, I never knew that" on many occasion.
I certainly didn't realise the true meaning of the word "berk" and apologise to anyone I have said this to in the past :)
March 4, 2021
4 / 5 for ‘Red Herrings and White Elephants’ by Albert Jack
An enjoyable and interesting guide to the historic stories behind many current and recent-times sayings within the English language.
Jack writes with authority and confidence and pleasing humour. Recommended to those interested in language.
4 / 5
An enjoyable and interesting guide to the historic stories behind many current and recent-times sayings within the English language.
Jack writes with authority and confidence and pleasing humour. Recommended to those interested in language.
4 / 5
August 1, 2024
I kind of wish I could remember all of these phrases, not just for a pub quiz trivia, but for actual use. Suddenly a lot more lyrics make sense! That chip in my shoulder? Surprise, not to be taken literally! You got just deserts? You're missing on more than just one letter!
Needless to say I thoroughly enjoyed this book!
Needless to say I thoroughly enjoyed this book!
September 27, 2025
I was not surprised to learn that the author lived in England. Many of the phrases I did not know ("Set the Thames alight," for example) were uniquely British.
A very good book for those who are confused by idioms in the English language, or want to know more about the origins of these phrases.
A very good book for those who are confused by idioms in the English language, or want to know more about the origins of these phrases.
August 7, 2020
Useful and quite interesting but I think the author picked wrong sayings (some not all of them); he should have picked some more common such as piece of cake, let's call a spade a spade, be as cool as a cuccumber...
December 6, 2021
Essential for anyone interested in the great British language.
How many phrases we use that we don't really know the meaning of. This book and its companion will be a permanent source of reference. I'm Happy As A Sandboy to have read this and can use those words with thanks to Dickens.
How many phrases we use that we don't really know the meaning of. This book and its companion will be a permanent source of reference. I'm Happy As A Sandboy to have read this and can use those words with thanks to Dickens.
December 8, 2025
I bought this book as a Christmas present and couldn’t resist reading it first before wrapping it up. I appreciated the author’s due diligence in researching the origin of common words and phrases. I learned a lot!
July 31, 2017
A wonderful reference book giving the meanings behind so many of the phrases we use every day, and some that have gone out of fashion.
September 20, 2018
Sehr hilfreich und mit typisch britischem Humor erklärt.
March 21, 2019
These idioms with historical origins are a reminder of how much more pleasant life is these days. A highly informative book.
November 21, 2019
makes the perfect toilet side pick up put down 5 minute read
December 26, 2019
Fascinating book.
January 16, 2020
Interesting little book dealing with the origins of many of the possibly strange sayings we use all the time.
February 15, 2020
Insightful collection of English idioms along with suggested stories of their origins. Great for any wordsmiths who are intrigued by everyday phrases.
May 3, 2020
Neat overview, mostly British sayings, and wouldn't rely too heavily on the scholarship because many of the backgrounds are truly unknown, but have "possible" backstories.
January 5, 2021
Interesting - however did get very repetitive and some descriptions felt quite rushed
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