Barron's a Pocket Guide to Cliches: "Hit the Road"

A practical, fast-reference guide for home or office, this new addition to Barron's "Pocket Guides" series takes on the subject of cliches--their origins, meanings, examples used within the context of a sentence, and in many cases, the regions where the idiom is used most often. This volume is also a great way for ESL students to gain insights into informal American English as it is really spoken.

This compulsively readable new addition to Barron's "Pocket Guides" series covers American clich?s from "absence makes the heart grow fonder" to "yellow-bellied." Bell, a professor of management communication at the University of San Francisco and author of A Pocket Guide to Synonyms and A Pocket Guide Thesaurus, identifies three target audiences for his guide: native English speakers who don't understand the clich?s of other generations, non-native speakers of American English baffled by the language's colloquialisms, and writers interested in avoiding clich?s in their work. This is a "quick and dirty" source, providing only concise definitions and the illustrative use of each clich? in a sentence. The absence of an index limits the book's utility somewhat, as does the lack of cross referencing. Bell makes no claims to have written a comprehensive source; those interested in the origins and deeper meanings of clich?s should consult the lengthier and more scholarly entries in Christine Ammer's Have a Nice DayANo Problem: A Dictionary of Clich?s (LJ 1/92) or Betty Kirkpatrick's Clich?s: Over 1500 Phrases Explored and Explained (LJ 7/97). While not as detailed or as inclusive as these sources, this pocket guide is a useful and cheap reference source for people who want to "get down to the brass tacks" of a succinct definition. Recommended for quick reference or for idle minutes at the reference desk.AKathleen Collins, Arizona State Univ. West Lib., Phoenix
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.