Descripcion del libro:
**A third book of english idioms**: The general method on which this book has been compiled is similar to that of its two predecessors.
As in them, the idioms selected have usually been those in most frequent use today, though occasionally it has seemed interesting, for at all events the older generations of readers, to include some that only within living memory have become obsolescent or obsolete.
Those who know the previous collections are asked to excuse the following restatement of some other principles that affect this sequel.
In studying idioms one is confronted, apart from any questions there may be of the current meaning of an expression, by the problem of the origin of or allusion in it. As Pearsall Smith pointed out, there are many phrases of which even specialists have not been able to find a sure explanation. A factor in the formation of an idiom must often have been a desire for euphony, alliteration, rhyme, repetition. Moreover referring to what he calls "the expressiveness of irrelevant phrases" he suggests that they often show a breaking loose, a love for the absurd, a reluctance to submit to reason, so that the human mind seems to prefer irrelevance as appealing to the imagination and adding to a phrase's vividness and charm.
