A complete guide to phrases in everyday life

A Word in your Shell-Like will be the ideal replacement or complement to that tatty old copy of Brewer's most of us have about the house: a modern, entertaining guide to the wonderful world of phrases, familiar and unfamiliar, a landmark publication by one of the key world authorities in English language reference. It is an entirely phrase-based book, exploring well-known phrases - catchphrases, slogans, idioms, cliches, nicknames, titles of books and films, and quotations. The articles will contain discussion of meaning, origin and usage. Sample entries include:

'but, miss - you're beautiful without your glasses'
'I must go down to the seas again'
'small, but perfectly formed'
'sold down the river'
`abhors a vacuum'
`all dressed up and nowhere to go'
`and when did you last see your father?'
`Anglo-Saxon attitudes'
`another meal the Germans won't have'
`What did you do in the Great War, Daddy?'
`by Grand Central Station I sat down and wept'
`Burlington Bertie'

Few other word reference books are likely to increase your store of knowledge with such fun: find out of whom it was said: 'he couldn't chew gum and fart at the same time', who the `catcher in the rye' was, and what it means to be `caught between wind and water'.

in your shell?like (ear). Phrase used when asking to have a 'quiet word' with someone: '(Let me have a word) in your ear' is all it means, but it makes gentle fun of a poetic simile. Thomas Hood's Bianca's Dream (1827) has: 'Her small and shell-like ear'. The Complete Naff Guide (1983) has 'a word in your shell-like ear' among 'naff things schoolmasters say'.