Spilling the Beans on the Cat's Pyjamas
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€13.99
How on earth did 'with bells on' come to express enthusiasm?
What do chips on shoulders have to do with inferiority complexes?
... And who is the face that launched a thousand ships?
Spilling the Beans on the Cat's Pyjamas provides us with the meanings of these well-worn and much-loved phrases by putting these linguistic quirks in context, and explaining how and why they were first used.
For example, did you know that 'the rule of thumb' refers to the use of the thumb to make measurements, as the first joint of the average adult thumb measures one inch?
Absorbing, diverting and fascinating - as far as gift books go, Spilling the Beans really is the bee's knees!
Judy Parkinson has worked in film and television and has written several notable biographies. She is the author of I Before E (Except After C): Old-School Ways to Remember Stuff, Remember, Remember (The Fifth of November): The History of Britain in Bite-Sized Chunks, and Spilling the Beans on the Cat's Pyjamas: Popular Expressions - What They Mean and Where We Got Them, all published by Michael O’Mara Books. She lives and works in London.