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The Cambridge International Dictionary of Idioms | |
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
587 pages
Price £14.95
ISBN 0-521-62567-x
Do English idioms drive you round the bend, send you potty or make you go bananas? Maybe you find them as clear as mud, and they leave you thinking that you are as thick as two short planks because you can't get your head around them? Well, help is at hand - try this book and you could end up thinking that you are Jack the Lad and on top of it all.
Okay. Idioms. They make English a rich and colourful language, but because they are often illogical, they are a real problem for students who are trying to understand what is going on in a book, film or conversation. For this reason, Cambridge University Press have put together 7000 of the most common idioms, and presented them together with clear explanations and examples.
If you are looking for something with large text and interesting pictures, look somewhere else. There is not a picture in the entire book, which is a pity, as making some of the idioms into a graphic format might make them easier to remember. (Think how you might illustrate the idiom 'to have cold feet' for example.) Instead most of the book consists of columns of text containing keywords for each idiom. We were not sure how this would work, since idioms sometimes have different constructions. For example if you do not know much about something, you might say 'You can write what I know on the back of a postage stamp', or 'it would fit on the back of a postage stamp'. Sensibly, the dictionary has thought of most of the possibilities and linked them, so you can find this idiom under 'fit', 'write' or 'postage stamp'
As a quick check, we know of five idioms using the word 'Jack'. The dictionary also had five, but three were different. One of our choices - to 'jack it in' , (meaning give up something as a waste of effort) perhaps should have been there. Our other two idioms were obscene. At first we thought that the book did not cover vulgar idioms, but further research showed that in fact this is not be a suitable book for the very young or sensitive. This is a serious point though, as swear words and taboo actions are very often part of idiomatic language. The book covers idiom in British, US and Australian English, and carefully explains which is which. (For example in the United States, the expression 'to be pissed' is a vulgar way of saying to be very annoyed. In English it means 'to be drunk'.) We would have liked to see some explanation of how the different idioms originated, but there is none.
The website listed on the cover - www.cambridge.org - takes you to the Cambridge University press page. But here's a secret - go instead to http://dictionary.cambridge.org/ . Here you will find not only the Cambridge Dictionary of Idioms, but also the other book in the series - the Cambridge Dictionary of Phrasal Verbs. (among others) Click on any of the dictionaries, and you can search it for a word or phrase right there on the site. Excellent!
Who is this book for? If you read English newspapers or watch English language soap operas on television, this dictionary will be very useful. Readers of books that use a lot of idiomatic language will also benefit, especially as the book also explains some older or outdated idioms (and explains that they are not used today).
Verdict: Very good if you need to check idioms often. But rather expensive..
Assessment 9/10 (Because it allows you to use the dictionary free online)