A Concise Dictionary of English Idioms

Előszó

In revising William Freeman's Dictionary, I have done nothing to change the two objects he had in view. The first was to furnish both the native or the foreign reader with a simple and practical guide to the most frequently used idiomatic expressions in English-those countless expressions which everyone uses, which usually evade the normál rules of grammar, and which often have implications quite unconnected with the normál meanings of the words themselves. The second was to give the origin and history of somé of these. 1 have, however, made substantial alterations to the text. Many archaic idioms have been deleted, and over 1200 new ones have been added. In many cases, the alterations are simply a result of differences of judgment between myself and the originál compiler in deciding where the line ought to be drawn, in a concise dictionary, between expressions which are common enough to deserve inclusion and those which are not. In somé cases, however, the amendments have been necessitated by changes in the language during the twenty years or more since the originál publication of this Dictionary: such changes are specially prominent in the areas where idiom shades into colloquialism and slang, and where idiom has to do with social customs and conventions. The user of this Dictionary should be aware that it has frequently been difficult to decide under what word an idiom should be entered. Should 'See how the land lies' be entered under 'See', 'Land' or 'Lie' ? Cross-references have frequently been used, but complete cross-referring would have increased the size of this volume several times; accordingly, if an expression does not appear in the place the reader expects, he is asked to look it up under another key word in the expression. Similar difficulties have occurred in deciding on the correct alphabetical order of idioms within any one entry; idioms usually consist of several words, and have more than one key word, with the result that exact alphabetizing is impossible. Again the reader is requested to bear with the editor, and to be prepared to look in more than one place under an entry. There are a number of deliberate omissions from the Dictionary: foreign words or phrases, commercial and technical idioms, dialect words, and, for the most part, single words-the idiomatic variations of which can be discovered in any ordinary dictionary. Vissza