Spilling the Beans on the Cat's Pajamas

by Parkinson, Judy

• ISBN13: 9781606521717
• ISBN10: 1606521713
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-09-30
• Publisher: Readers Digest

Summary

"Make no bones about it"-Spilling the Beans on the Cat's Pajamasis the perfect collection for anyone seeking the meanings of terms that enrich our everyday speech. It "rounds up the usual suspects"-hundreds of catch phrases, quotations, and expressions that keep our language flourishing-and makes them easy to find in an A-to-Z format. If "all goes according to plan,"you'll soon know: The expressions"all that glitters is not gold"and"apple of the eye"have each been in use for more than 1,000 years "To bark up the wrong tree"comes from the sport of raccoon hunting "The big enchilada"was used to describe someone on the infamous Watergate tapes Embarrassed parents can thank the songwriter Cole Porter for the euphemism "the birds and the bees" "Flavor of the month" was a generic advertising phrase of the mid- 1940s used to describe new ice cream flavors