The Oxford Dictionary of English Idioms offers a fresh look at the idiomatic phrases and sayings that make English the rich language that it is. The third edition contains entries for over 6,000 idiom
Wobbly Bits is the essential guide to polite conversation. Covering everything from the politically incorrect to the seriously taboo, this humorous book offers over 3,000 ways to avoid speaking your m
The Encyclopedia of Surnames is not just another dictionary! With entertaining coverage of more than 7,000 surnames listed alphabetically, it provides a complete and accessible companion to tracing th
The average contemporary English speaker knows 50,000 words. Yet this apparently huge diversity masks a network of complex and often unsuspected family relationships that link many of these words toge
Highly readable. Lively and informed collection of rhyming slang Arranged in 27 topics, including clothing, food and drink, sex, animals, and illness, to provide a coherent picture of the development
Seasoned generously with literary wit, The Diner's Dictionary is a veritable feast, tracing the origins and history of over 2,300 gastronomical words and phrases. John Ayto spreads across our table a
What is the link between map and apron, acrobat and oxygen, zeal and jealousy, flour and pollen, secret and crime? Did you know that crimson originally comes from the name of tiny scale insects, the k
Slang is language with its sleeves rolled up, colorful, pointed, brash, bristling with humor and sometimes with hostility. Now, in Oxford Dictionary of Modern Slang, John Ayto and John Simpson have ga
