The alt.usage.english FAQ   

• Books on phrase origins

  (Recommended Books)
  
  Be warned that every book on phrase origins so far published has etymologies that are more speculative and less rigorous than those in general dictionaries.
  
  Christine Ammer _Have a Nice Day -- No Problem! : A Dictionary of Cliches_ Plume Penguin, 1992, ISBN 0-452-27004-9
  
  Robert Hendrickson _The Facts on File Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins_ Facts on File, 1987, ISBN 0-86237-122-7 (The paperback reprint, _The Henry Holt Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins_, is no longer available.). A second edition was published in 2000.
  
  Nigel Rees _Bloomsbury Dictionary of Phrase and Allusion_ Bloomsbury, 1991, ISBN 0-7475-1217-5
  
  Ivor H. Evans, ed. _Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable_ 14th ed., Harper & Row, 1989, ISBN 0-304-31835-3
  
  Charles Earle Funk _2107 Curious Word Origins, Sayings, and Expressions from White Elephants to Song & Dance_ (an omnibus of four earlier books, 1948-58) Galahad, 1993, ISBN 0-88365-845-3.
  
  Source: [Mark Israel, 'Recommended Books: Books on phrase origins', The alt.usage.english FAQ file,(line 838), (29 Sept 1997)]
  
  
  
  

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