The Facts on File Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins (Facts on File Writer's Library)

Rating:
Summary: Fine reference but......
Review: I bought this revision in its "hardcover" format. My first-edition hardcover of this book has a sewn binding, unlike the cheap "glued-in" binding of *this* revision. Geez, if they want to charge such a premium price for a reference work I feel that they should maintain all aspects of quality, including binding quality. Anyhow, the content in this new edition is indeed expanded, and various original entries have been revised and corrected. The book is great for mere reference as well as for browsing.

All the above being said, if this new edition had a *SEWN* binding I'd give it five stars!

Rating:
Summary: A Good Start
Review: I don't think that a better description of this volume of English Language source material than the one in "Library Journal" can be found. Their reviewers called it witty and insightful and "useful to the general reader, and especially to the historian and student of language." To this I would add that it is also a great source of trivia to trip up one's spouse or drinking buddies.

I can't think of a better way to describe its contents than to give a few examples out of the 7,500 or so entries that I found interesting, or amusing, or both.

Being an American, I had never quite understood the difference between a solicitor and a barrister or exactly how these British attorneys related to their American counterparts. Now I do. A solicitor is a type of legal practitioner who does general legal work while a barrister is one who does trial work.

Now, for American Baseball fans: Do you know why "K" is the symbol for a strikeout? I didn't either, but now I do. Way back in the dark ages of baseball, when a batter struck out, it was said that he had "struck." Letters were used for scoring then just as they are now, but the letter "S" was already being used for sacrifice, so they assigned "K," the last letter of the word struck, to stand for "a player who missed the ball in three swings."

Here's one for our British cousins: "'S - - t' said the Queen." The following has never been proved but it makes a great story. Mark Twain and his good friend, Rudyard Kipling, had a contest to see who could make up the bawdiest and most offensive story, An effort of Kipling's which began with "'S - - t!' said the Queen" was brought to Queen Victoria's attention. She was not amused. This may explain why Kipling was never knighted and never became Poet Laureate.

There are at least two names in this encyclopedia for what I'm being in this review; "Smart Aleck" and "Wiseacre." I'm going to risk "getting your dander up" and be a real smart aleck by telling you that you'll have to find your own copy and look these up for yourselves if you want to know more about them. You'll probably have a lot of fun if you do.

Rating:
Summary: Missing many common phrases
Review: I got this book based on some of the reviews I read and there are indeed many good entries. But there are so many more missing entries that are far more common than what it is listed.

Some of the entries I have looked for and NOT found:

Tomfoolery
can't have your cake and eat it too
can't see the forest for the trees
dog and pony show
in the doghouse
with bells on
hard-nosed
slowpoke
wisecrack

Or in the case of "high noon" it has an entry but just says that it is not from the movie, it was first recorded in 14th-century England. No further explaination of how or why. In fact many of the entries that are listed don't have that answer. A large percentage of the entries have some form of uncertainty.
"... is probably dated back to..."
"It is unknown how..."
"... may have it's origins in..."

The defintions of some of the phrases are confusing and don't even touch on origin. All I can do it list an entry on this one (NOTE: this is the complete entry):

beg to advise. The much-used phrase beg to advise, so often read in business letters, may be dated but isn't incorrect by any means. Here "advise" doesn't mean "to give advice" but "to give information," information being one of the meanings of advice. This is seen in another common business expression: "We would appreciate the benefit of your advice."

The index is also poor, it seems only to list the people who said the phrases not the actually phrases.

I recommend the Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins it has all of the phrases I couldn't find here. The index is great, it also list the root word of the phrase. So if I want "can't have your cake and eat it too" I could lookup the actual phrase or under "cake" it has a list of the phrases with cake in them.

Keep in mind this book has a lot of words and phrases that one doesn't, and that one has a lot this one doesn't, but that one has more of what you (or at least I) want.

Rating:
Summary: An invaluable reference for students of language.
Review: Robert Hendrickson's revised, expanded edition of Word Phrases And Origins provides a winner to any who want a comprehensive coverage more in-depth than most casual lay treatments. This A-Z collection includes slang, proverbs, animal and place names and historical expressions under one cover, making an invaluable reference for students of language.

Rating:
Summary: Hendrickson, Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins
Review: This is the least used of approximately 50 similar reference works in my personal reference library. It seems to have a very high USA content which is not relevant to international English.