This work explains the origins of the familiar and the unfamiliar in everyday speech and literature, including the colloquial and the proverbial. It embraces ar

The Ascent of John Company is the story of the founding of the British empire in India. The process of founding empires is rarely, if ever, edifying. It is inva

With its unparalleled coverage of English slang of all types (from 18th-century cant to contemporary gay slang), and its uncluttered editorial apparatus, Cassel

Covering over 10,000 idioms and collocations characterized by similarity in their wording or metaphorical idea which do not show corresponding similarity in the