Red Herrings and White Elephants: Albert Jack

Product Information

If you happen to be a bootlegger, your profession recalls the Wild West outlaws who sold illegal alcohol by concealing slender bottles of whiskey in their boots. If you're on cloud nine, you owe a nod to the American Weather Bureau's classification of clouds, the ninth topping out all others at a mountainous 40,000 feet. If you happen to be a bootlegger, your profession recalls the Wild West outlaws who sold illegal alcohol by concealing slender bottles of whiskey in their boots. If you're on cloud nine, you owe a nod to the American Weather Bureau's classification of clouds, the ninth topping out all others at a mountainous 40, 000 feet. If you opt for the hair of the dog the morning after, you're following the advice of medieval English doctors, who recommended rubbing the hair of a dog into the wound left by the animal's bite. I never questioned the origin of While Elephants, Red Herrings, or any of the other many ideomatic phrases that we use everyday, but a friend of mine bought me this book and I was blown away! Origin: This phrase refers to smoked herring. In many parts of 19th century Britain such fish have a very strong smell and were usually known, not as kippers, but as red herrings. Because of their smell, they were good at masking other smells. As a result, they could easily cover the scent of a fox. A red herring pulled across the trail could divert the hounds onto a false path. Thus, by analogy, the phrase came to be used to describe any false trail.

Red Herrings and White Elephants by - Perlego [PDF] Red Herrings and White Elephants by - Perlego

long and short is...the white elephants resides, i suspect, in fort knox..as that was one of two possible likelys the bus passed through... This is not the kind of book that you can just sit down and read. It is absolutely mandatory that you have someone nearby that you can tap on the shoulder and ask if they know what a red herring is or a white elephant. Amusing and informative...[takes] you on a trip through the most fascinating and richest regions of the English language."--Knutsford Guardian (UK) English–Arabic English–Bengali English–Catalan English–Czech English–Danish English–Hindi English–Korean English–Malay English–Marathi English–Russian English–Tamil English–Telugu English–Thai English–Turkish English–Ukrainian English–Vietnamese Dicey": From some Mr. Dicey. I doubt it. The derivation from "dice" just sounds much more plausible.

Open Library

At coffee mornings, fetes and similar events in the village where I grew up there was often white elephant stall, which had all sorts of odds and ends that people want to get rid of. An enjoyable and interesting guide to the historic stories behind many current and recent-times sayings within the English language. somewhere here, i believe, i saw this book/writing/words and took note. i am now tending to it and i enjoy it...a kind of look-see at idiom...so many that are nautical, which is nice. beep beep.

Red Herrings and White Elephants - AbeBooks Red Herrings and White Elephants - AbeBooks

Ocr tesseract 4.1.1 Ocr_detected_lang en Ocr_detected_lang_conf 1.0000 Ocr_detected_script Latin Ocr_module_version 0.0.5 Ocr_parameters -l eng Old_pallet IA19203 Openlibrary_edition Not sure it’s what you had in mind but concerning phrases with colour adjective+animal, in French we have the following sayings and phrases: Origin: From the Burmese belief that albino elephants are sacred. They can’t be used for work and they must be lavished with the ultimate amount of care. If the King of Siam wished to get rid of a particular courtier, he gave a gift of a white elephant. The courtier dared not offend the King with a refusal although he was fully aware that the cost of upkeep of such an animal was ruinous. If you have even a slight interest in the history of language and phrases this book is a must read.Two bits of that story are true. “Dicey” did begin as RAF slang during WWII. And, as Bill P. discovered in his research, there is indeed a “Dice” airfield at Aberdeen, Scotland, evidently known for its clear weather. A White Elephant is an expression used to describe something that has, or will, become a huge burden to those who possess it. It suggests the cost of possession could ruin a person financially. For this we travel to Thailand, in the days when it was known as Siam. According to the legend white elephants … have looked through this a few times and read bits and pieces from it. just dug it out again now/ Thank you auntie Pat D. great book have it still with us after you buying it years ago. will never part with this. It is interesting to note that most of the sayings do not even originate from the English language, and are cobbled up from Anglo-Saxon, Latin, Greek, French, Swedish, Norse (when it's raining cats and dogs or when someone went berserk), Hindustani (when someone has gone Doolally), Jewish (when you tell someone to eat his heart out) and even Gaelic (when you declared something as phoney), just to name a few.