When I teach History of English to English majors, I have an etymology assignment where they have to find the origins of a figure of speech. The hardest part of that assignment is almost always finding a reputable scholarly source to support whatever phrase you’ve chosen. Naturally when I saw Why Do We Say That? On the library shelf, I was hopeful. I was shortly thereafter disappointed.
This book is indeed a collection of 101 idiomatic phrases (and most of them count as figurative) that are still mostly commonly used. However, there is absolutely no source citation at all, not even an explanation of where the info or reasoning might be from, which leaves your friendly neighborhood English prof highly suspicious of the accuracy. That said, there ae several that I know to be correct which is a good sign, but that still doesn’t explain the total lack of factual underpinnings.
I do appreciate that the brief introduction notes that different idioms might have more than one use and origin depending on when and where you are, and I might steal (but also cite/credit) the list of “6 Benefits of Reading Idioms”. I also have to wonder though, if you know attribution is tricky, why the {bleep} don’t you include your own sources?!
There’s also some weird randomness included, like between idioms 60 (not for all the tea in China) and 61 (all at sea), there’s a page that addresses the lyrics of “Ring around the Rosie” and the origins of the Fahrenheit and Celsius scales. The “Did you know?” pages are interesting but they don’t really fit consistently. The early modern song lyrics makes sense in the context of idiom and figures, but what’s the history of science got to with anything here?
At least it wasn’t a total loss; I now know what CAPTCHA stands for. Also, the purported origins of “Raining cats and dogs” is really tragic and off-putting (CW: 4-legged friends ARE harmed, though not necessarily intentionally). I may not be using that phrase anymore. Even if that turns out to be a false etymology. “Break a leg” though at least makes sense, even if it’s not true (to be clear, genuine unknown here), but it’s kind of funny