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Port Out, Starboard Home: The Fascinating Stories We Tell About the Words We Use

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Port Out, Starboard Home: The Fascinating Stories We Tell About the words We Use - Quinion, Michael
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Can it really be true that 'golf' stands for 'Gentlemen Only Ladies Forbidden'? Or that 'rule of thumb' comes from an archaic legal principle that a man may chastise his wife, but only with a rod no thicker than his thumb? These and hundreds of other stories are commonly told and retold whenever people meet. They grow up in part because expressions are often genuinely mysterious. Why, for example, are satisfying meals 'square' rather than any other shape? And how did anyone ever come up with the idea that if you're ...

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Port Out, Starboard Home: The Fascinating Stories We Tell About the words We Use 2005, Penguin Books Ltd, London

ISBN-13: 9780141012230

Paperback