The Activity of learning idioms and pharses is not as easy as learning simple day to day English words or vocabulary but it is also not as hard as it at first seems to be. However, the Use of Pharses in the activity of writting or speaking can not be seen as less important than other common words or expressions . So it is important to have our knowledge of idioms and phrases and their correct meanings by learning them as thoroughly as any conversational English words and meaning given in the English Dictionary , or by practising them as much as we can to enhance our language competence.

Allen’s Dictionary of English Phrases is the most comprehensive survey of this area of the English language ever undertaken. Taking over 6000 phrases, it explains their meaning, explores their development and gives citations that range from the Venerable Bede to Will Self. Crisply and wittily written, the book is packed with memorable and surprising detail, whether showing that 'salad days' comes from Antony and Cleopatra, that 'flavour of the month' originates in 1940s American ice cream marketing, or even that we’ve been 'calling a spade a spade' since the sixteenth century. Allen’s Dictionary of English Phrases is part of the Penguin Reference Library and draws on over 70 years of experience in bringing reliable, useful and clear information to millions of readers around the world – making knowledge everybody’s property.

Did you ever leave an opera performance wondering why the singers use so much vibrato? Or a symphony, wondering who decided where on stage the orchestra members should sit, or why they tune their instruments to an oboe rather than an electronic tuner? Why is Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture played on the 4th of July? And how does a composer choose what key to compose in? In Who Knew?: Answers to Questions about Classical Music You Never Thought to Ask, master music educator Robert A. Cutietta provides lucid answers to these and more than 140 other questions submitted by listeners to his popular weekly radio program. Through its pages, this highly readable guide touches on some of the most curiosity-inducing aspects of the tradition, from why audiences refrain from applauding between movements to how opera singers warm up on the night of a big debut. The responses are drawn from conversations with professional musicians and music educators, with additional contributions by Gail Eichenthal of KUSC, giving a rare glimpse into how musicians think and talk about their work. Lovers of classical music who would like to flesh out their understanding are sure to find a powerful resource in Cutietta's down-to-earth guide, and even seasoned listeners are sure to learn a thing or two. This book will provide hours of enjoyment as readers invariably shake their heads and ask in wonderment, "Who knew!"

This book is a resource for English language users, and provides a comprehensive list of phrasal verbs defined in easily accessible language, as well as examples of common usage for each. Beyond serving as a reference, it is accompanied by exercises written to aid non-native speakers of English in achieving a more thorough understanding of English phrasal verbs. Anyone looking to achieve a more native-like level of fluency, or simply increase their mastery of an unpredictable aspect of the English language will be well served by this text.

Analogy is the core of all thinking. This is the simple but unorthodox premise that Pulitzer Prize -- winning author Douglas Hofstadter and French psychologist Emmanuel Sander defend in their new work. Hofstadter has been grappling with the mysteries of human thought for over thirty years. Now, with his trademark wit and special talent for making complex ideas vivid, he has partnered with Sander to put forth a highly novel perspective on cognition. We are constantly faced with a swirling and intermingling multitude of ill-defined situations. Our brain's job is to try to make sense of this unpredictable, swarming chaos of stimuli. How does it do so? The ceaseless hail of input triggers analogies galore, helping us to pinpoint the essence of what is going on. Often this means the spontaneous evocation of words, sometimes idioms, sometimes the triggering of nameless, long-buried memories. Why did two-year-old Camille proudly exclaim, "I undressed the banana!"? Why do people who hear a story often blurt out, "Exactly the same thing happened to me!" when it was a completely different event? How do we recognize an aggressive driver from a split-second glance in our rearview mirror? What in a friend's remark triggers the offhand reply, "That's just sour grapes"? What did Albert Einstein see that made him suspect that light consists of particles when a century of research had driven the final nail in the coffin of that long-dead idea? The answer to all these questions, of course, is analogy-making -- the meat and potatoes, the heart and soul, the fuel and fire, the gist and the crux, the lifeblood and the wellsprings of thought. Analogy-making, far from happening at rare intervals, occurs at all moments, defining thinking from top to toe, from the tiniest and most fleeting thoughts to the most creative scientific insights. Like Gö, Escher, Bach before it, Surfaces and Essences will profoundly enrich our understanding of our own minds. By plunging the reader into an extraordinary variety of colorful situations involving language, thought, and memory, by revealing bit by bit the constantly churning cognitive mechanisms normally completely hidden from view, and by discovering in them one central, invariant core -- the incessant, unconscious quest for strong analogical links to past experiences -- this book puts forth a radical and deeply surprising new vision of the act of thinking.