Book Description
Rates a recommendation to lovers of language. – William Safire, New York Times. A masterful metaphor, like a picture, may be worth a thousand words. By comparing two unlike objects or ideas, it illuminates the similarities between them, accomplishing in a word or phrase what could otherwise be expressed only in many words, if at all. Metaphors Dictionary is an expansive collection of 6,500 colorful classic and contemporary comparative phrases (with full annotations and a complete bibliography of sources). The Metaphors Dictionary revisits most of the great and respected names in the annals of cultural literacy while dipping into current literature and media sources. And now available for the first time in hard cover, it’s bound for heavy duty at a price that’s hard to beat.
Customer Reviews:
Indespensable for new writers.......2007-03-24
Simply priceless: thorough, insightful, analytical, and easy to use.
Five stars. Amen
Book Description
Have you ever wondered about the origin of "son of a gun," "flotsam and jetsam," or "hunky-dory"? You'll find the nautical derivation of these expressions and more than 250 others in this collection of nautical metaphors and colloquialisms. In addition, this book includes thought-provoking and entertaining examples of these words drawn from literature, movies, and song, and contains sections of legends of the sea and weather lore. Fascinating reading for sailors and language enthusiasts alike. Here's the scuttlebutt: Barge right in and swallow the anchor, and let's chew the fat and splice the main brace 'til we're three sheets to the wind. Listen, you son of a sea cook, I'm tired of minding my P's and Q's. I tell you, I'm all at sea, and this is the bitter end. Nothing I can do will keep this ship on an even keel. Hells bells! You think I didn't tell it to the old man? Delivered a broadside, I did, but he just called me a loose cannon. Maybe I caught him between wind and water. Listen, mate. You'd better bootleg a bible aboard. We're sailing under false colors, and where we're headed it's cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey. It's Davy Jones' locker I'm talking about. The crew was scraped from the bottom of the barrel. They don't know the ropes, and anyway they're deserting like rats from a sinking ship. It's time to fish or cut bait, mate, or there'll be the devil to pay. No use flogging a dead horse. Let's stay armed to the teeth and look for any port in a storm. There'll be nothing but flotsam and jetsam when this tub goes down the hatch.
Customer Reviews:
This is no 'sloppy' work!.......2007-08-23
There are many books that inform us of the number of phrases and words that originated in the days of sail and have become part of every landlubber's English voacabulary. Olivia Isil's book takes a fresh and more comprehensive look at these derivations. Immensely readable, entertaining and informative. Essential to have by the bedside or in the yacht's locker to settle arguments!
Wonderful book!.......2007-03-04
I'm now having to purchase my third copy of this book! I buy a copy, loan it out and then never see it again! It is truly amazing to find out how many of our colloquialisms come from the sea. By this book and you will enjoy every minute of it.
Throw me an anchor..............2002-02-28
PLEASE!! Forgive me for being aloof...all at sea.Barge In,its
ok.I just don't get it. I've read better cereal boxes.
A lovely book full of seagoing lore..........2000-03-26
This book is a gem! It's full of history and lore related to the sea and those who sail upon it. It has over a hundred pages of interesting information regarding the derivation of words and phrases used in everyday speech. My husband was raised on the seacoast of Nova Scotia, and I've spent many summers on the coast of North Carolina, so we are no strangers to the sea and sailing. This book made a perfect gift for him this past Christmas.
A great little book for "the head"........1999-12-17
It is intriguing to learn how many familiar expressions in our everyday speech have their origins at sea (having "washed ashore" as the author puts it). Many of these sayings started out as fairly technical naval terms.
For instance the "bitter end" is the tail-end of an anchor line that may disappear overboard if not properly secured (along with a sailor's reputation). To "flake out" means to lay chain out on deck so it may be inspected for weak links.
And I won't "let the cat out of the bag" (another entry) in regards to the ever-popular "cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey", except to say that it's NOTHING CLOSE to what you think it means! As always the author's voice is clear and refreshing as she recounts coaxing the explanation out of an old salt. (I can't help thinking that it is the woman's perspective on the subject that helps make this little book so delightful.)
The book is divided up into "Metaphors and Colloquialisms", "Wind, Waves and Weather", and "Yarns of the Sea, Legends, Myths and Superstitions". I recommend a randomized reading approach to best savor the little surprises.
Book Description
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."
Customer Reviews:
A reference for the hidden poetry of our language.......2006-06-13
A metaphor is "A word or phrase used figuratively." That's fine for expressions such as "dyed in the wool" or "on the blink" but what about some single words - "disaster", "absurd", "salary" -how does Robert Claiborne figure those as metaphors? Loose Cannons, Red Herrings, and Other Lost Metaphors explains it all.
Surprisingly, a large portion of the words in our everyday usage are metaphors, whether we think of them that way or not. Sometimes these metaphors have origins in other languages; witness "fiasco", Italian for flask or bottle, connoting a mess in English due to its obscure theatrical slang. My favorite is the word "astonish", from the Latin *extonare*, meaning to strike with a thunderbolt. You can see how people would infer being, ahem, shocked from a word that literally meant "thunderstruck". By such associative methods do we owe much of our English vocabulary.
Of course, Loose Cannons also has a large helping of full phrased metaphors, as the title implies. It's not the most complete listing of its type that I've ever found, but they are all lost in the sense that a sizeable minority of people don't know, or probably couldn't guess, their origins. The stories behind them are colorful as well, the author admittedly preferring the more colorful etymologies where there was a choice.
I can respect that Mr. Claiborne concedes openly that many explanations are often merely educated guesses, and that his preferred versions may be incorrect. He invites readers to challenge his conclusions, provided they can do so from facts and not heresay or personal opinion. But he does cite very credible sources, primarily the Oxford English Dictionary and the Dictionary of American English on Historical Principles.
This is a fun book, written with an eye toward storytelling as much as historical trivia. A nice reference to have handy.
-Andrea, aka merribelle
More lite! Less Filling!.......2004-08-07
For all of its snide tone and shortish explanations, "Loose Cannons, Red Herrings and Other Lost Metaphors" is enjoyable enough. The book relates the history of familiar phrases whose origins, due to changes in habits and technology, are lost to modern English speakers. Expressions like "it's raining cats and dogs," "taken aback," "minding one's Ps and Qs" (not to mention the expression about the brass monkey) are all included, along with short entries about their origins and sometimes original meanings. Who knew that a "rake" was short for "rakehell" -- a person so depraved that one would have to "rake through the coals of hell" to find his like?
Entertaining as it is, the book has drawbacks. First, some of its entries are not terribly convincing. Claiborne sometimes spends more time taking potshots at explanations he disagrees with than in advancing his own. Also, Claiborne's tongue is sometimes planted so firmly in his cheek, and his style is so snide and acerbic, that his point is obscured. Claiborne's politics and religious preferences (or lack thereof) also come out from time to time, with no benefit to the reader.
As an entertaining (if not always elucidatatory) work, "Loose Cannons" probably beats a dry, scholarly work on the origin of phrases, but reading it leaves me hungry for meatier fare.
"Oh, so that's where it came from!".......2003-03-16
When I was a boy, I was told things like "don't hem and haw," "get off your high horse," "this is straight from the horse's mouth," "he's a bigwig" "take it with a grain of salt" and, often a favorite of elders, to "mind my P's and Q's." I learned to use such phrases and knew what I thought was the proper usage, but never fully understood what they meant...if you know what I mean. So, here is an amusing little book filled with all sorts of phrases and words we have heard for years but may have wondered about. The author explains in the Introduction that the most plausible etymology is not always easy to come up with, and in some cases, he simply picks the most colorful one. The book is far from complete, but Claiborne does include many common single words like "career," "cynic," "dunce," "keister," "shyster" and "tulip." Many of the origins are humorous, but some might raise an eyebrow. I don't think that I'm satisfied with his explanations of "paint the town red" and "once in a blue moon." "The real McCoy" is a real disappointment, but "pie in the sky" is particularly amusing.
A book of similar scope and price, COMMON PHRASES AND WHERE THEY COME FROM by Myron Korach, invites direct comparison. While the Claiborne is alphabetical, like a dictionary, with no index, the Korach is arranged in general groupings and includes an index. Much in these two books overlaps, but the Korach book includes many expressions, like "in the pink," "dark horse," "eat humble pie," "deadhead" and "make no bones of it," that the Claiborne does not, and vise versa. Four more books in this price range could be considered: A HOG ON ICE, HEAVENS TO BETSY!, HORSEFEATHERS and THEREBY HANGS A TALE, all by Charles Earle Funk. There is enough individual perspective in each of these six books to justify owning them all--if you are, or become, an addict.
Further comparisons to other, higher-priced books of this nature will surely open a Pandora's box (sorry), so I will just make tracks (sorry, again), and recommend this enjoyable book for what it is: informative and entertaining, but not exhaustive.
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Sports Talk: A Dictionary of Sports Metaphors
Robert A. Palmatier , and
Harold L. Ray
Manufacturer: Greenwood Press
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ASIN: 0313264260 |
Book Description
This comprehensive dictionary brings together for the first time the popular words and expressions in American English that derive from terms associated with sports, games, and recreation. Many of these terms are now an integral part of the language, with others joining them all the time. The more than 1,700 terms in the dictionary are arranged alphabetically by first word. Full entries follow. At the end of the book a useful appendix classifies the metaphors according to the sports from which they originate. Each entry in this exhaustive resource contains an example of the popular use of the metaphor, indicating its part of speech; a definition of the metaphor; an identification of the probable source of the term; a definition of the metaphor as used within the sport or game of origin; a citation of other reference works; a discussion of how the term evolved from sports to popular use; and cross-references to other entries. The entries are preceded by a key which decodes the abbreviations used for other reference works and are followed by the source list of metaphors. Sports Talk is an essential resource for teachers, journalists, historians, linguists, etymologists, coaches, and others interested in sports and the language.
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Speaking of Animals: A Dictionary of Animal Metaphors
Robert A. Palmatier
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Metaphors Dictionary
ASIN: 0313294909 |
Book Description
No other nonhuman source has served as the basis for more metaphors than animals. Speaking of Animals is a dictionary of animal metaphors that are current in American English. It is comprehensive, historical, and metaphor-based. Each entry refers to the other dictionaries that catalog that same metaphor, and the dates of first appearance in writing are supplied, where possible, for both the metaphor and the name of the source. The main text is organized alphabetically by metaphor rather than by animal or animal behavior; all the metaphors are classified according to their animal source in a list at the end of the book. An animal metaphor is a word, phrase, or sentence that expresses a resemblance or similarity between someone or something and a particular animal or animal class. "True" metaphors are single words, such as the noun tiger, the verb hog, and the adjective chicken. Phrasal metaphors combine true metaphors with other words, such as blind tiger, hog the road, and chicken colonel. Other animal metaphors take the form of similes, such as like rats leaving a sinking ship and prickly as a hedgehog. Still others take the form of proverbs, such as Don't count your chickens before they hatch and Let sleeping dogs lie. The horse is the animal most frequently referred to in metaphors, followed closely by the dog. The Bible is the most prolific literary source of animal metaphors, followed closely by Shakespeare.
Book Description
Here are the most up-to-date curses, insults, ethnic slurs, sexual slang, metaphors, drug talk, street slang, college lingo, cant, colloquialisms, and other outlandish words. You'll find it all in this comprehensive, unabashed, and definitive reference for anyone who "wants a good knowledge of contemporary cussing." (William Safire, The New York Times Magazine)
Customer Reviews:
Great for a laugh.......2007-05-21
I doubt how useful this is as a refence book, but the entries are very entertaining nonetheless. It's not sloppy by any means, the author has done his homework, but it's most useful for entertainment. The astounding number of synonyms for all of your favorite dirty words is simply hilarious.
The title of this book is misleading.......2007-01-10
I bought this book because the title implied that it would be a reference for slang and euphemism. It is not even close to being that. The front of the book may give a clue to its contents but, still it is not clear. The front of the book lists the type of slang included in the book, including "Oaths, Curses, Insults, Ethnic Slurs" ... "College Lingo and Related Matters". However, it seems that many of the words included in the book that fall into this list of categories, also fall into the category of drugs, sex and alcohol. The majority of words are related to "Sexual Slang and Metaphor" and "Drug Talk". There is nothing wrong with this. It seems to me that this book does a pretty thorough job of listing such slang and euphemism, but that's not what I wanted and that's not what the title promised.
Buy this book... that is, if you have the need to speak, write or understand drug, sex and drunkeness slang.
jam packed with lots of information.......2005-08-22
this book reads like a dictinary full of 1000's of terms
Not to impressed........2003-10-06
I personally picked up this book for oaths, curses, and insults. Something to liven up some of my less polite fictional characters, you know? But after purchasing this book, I'm not to happy. It contains mostly "Sexual slangs and metaphors," a few drug terms, but nothing that really fit my needs. But if that is what you're needing the book's alright, I guess
Great Research Tool.......2002-05-30
Not only informative, but also amusing. A great reference tool for writing and using correct cultural slang and euphemism. No writer should be without it. Gives origin, culture, and time period of a word or it's slang as well as a definition.
Book Description
Ideal for ESL conversation and vocabulary classes, The Big Picture introduces students to high-frequency idioms using a metaphorical approach. The text features over 200 idioms categorized into eight units: Ideas, Knowledge, Argument, Emotion, Money, Control, People, and Life. Numerous activities, progressing from controlled to more open-ended, check comprehension, promote conversation, and provide students with relevant practice.
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- The usefulness of metaphors
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Babinski Reflex P
Goldberg
Manufacturer: Tarcher
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Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0874775639 |
Customer Reviews:
The usefulness of metaphors.......2001-02-26
Someone gave me a copy of this book back in 1991, and I finally got around to reading it just lately. It's a real treasure trove of Reflexes, Theorems, Laws, and Effects from many different disciplines: nuclear physics, medicine, psychology--to name a few. Here you will get an understanding of the Munchausen Syndrome, which enables you to understand why one notable version of this is called Munchausen's by Proxy. You'll also see one effect, syndrome, or factor compared with another, such as Janiger's Law, which predicts--somewhat in the way that the Peter Principle states that one will rise to the level of his or her incompetence--that people will persevere in accomplishments and encounters with new experiences only to the extent of their anxiety about the experience.
For each effect, there is described a metaffect, that is, a transference or application of the affect to behavior or feelings in everyday situations. By knowing the various theorems, principles, etc., one can recognize when others are being controlled by them, or when one is is danger of say, succumbing to The Bandwagon Effect or, in contrast, trying a new way of doing something, as in The Fosbury Flop.
In the end, "The Babinski Reflex" provides a way of understanding our world, as well as the metaphoric filters that people place on experience. I recommend the book whole-heartedly.
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The Concise Thesaurus of Traditional English Metaphors
Dick Wilkinson
Manufacturer: Routledge
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Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0415430844 |
Book Description
This absorbing collection of metaphors includes a variety of expressions with figurative meanings, like similes, proverbs, slang and catchphrases. It is the result of a lifetime of work on dialect and metaphor and gives an overview of the folk wisdom expressed in figurative expressions. The author draws on his extensive contact with the rural cultures of Dorset, Cornwall, Yorkshire and Lancashire, but has also included a range of sayings from North America, Australia, Scotland and other English speaking countries.
With revised contents and an improved index to make individual entries easier to find, the
Concise can be used to check the meaning and the origin of an expression or to avoid mixed metaphors, anachronisms and incongruities. It is a joy to browse long after your original query has been answered.
Books:
- Minimus Pupil's Book: Starting out in Latin (Cambridge Latin Texts)
- Mythology
- National Electrical Code 1999
- New Millennium Reader, The (4th Edition)
- Orality and Literacy (New Accents)
- Oxford-Paravia Italian Dictionary
- Pattern Classification (2nd Edition)
- Reference and Information Services: An Introduction
- Ripley's Special Edition 2007 (Ripley's Believe It Or Not Special Edition)
- Secondhand Bride (McKettrick Cowboys Trilogy #3)
Books Index
Books Home
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Metaphors We Live By
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Similes Dictionary
