Red Herrings & White Elephants The Origins of the Phrases We Use Every Day

Mad hatter... pie in the sky... egg on your face.We use these phrases every day, yet how many of us know what they really mean or where they came from?
Frombringing home the bacon to leaving no stone unturned, the English language is peppered with hundreds of common idioms borrowed from ancient traditions and civilizations throughout the world. InRed Herrings & White Elephants, Albert Jack has uncovered the amazing and sometimes downright bizarre stories behind many of our most familiar and eccentric modes of expression...
If you happen to be abootlegger, your profession recalls the Wild West outlaws who sold illegal alcohol by concealing slender bottles of whiskey in their boots. If you're oncloud nine, you owe a nod to the American Weather Bureau's classification of clouds, the ninth topping out all others at a mountainous 40,000 feet. If you opt for thehair of the dogthe morning after, you're following the advice of medieval English doctors, who recommended rubbing the hair of a dog into the wound left by the animal's bite.
A delightful compendium of anecdotes on everything fromminding your Ps and Qs to pulling out all the stops,Red Herrings & White Elephantsis an essential handbook for language-lovers of all ages.