Excerpt from Handbook of Idiomatic English, as Now Written and Spoken: Containing Idioms, Phrases, and Locutions This Handbook is intended to help Students and Travellers of all nationalities to speak and to write English correctly but it is assumed that those who use it are not mere beginners, and that they will always have a dictionary at hand for consultation. The Handbook contains a carefully selected list of those words and phrases in everyday use which are idiomatic, that is to say, which can seldom or never be translated literally into other languages, and which are rarely to be found in any ordinary grammar or dictionary. Many words, as everyone knows, are used in more or less invariable connection with others. If, for one or other of such words, synonymous words were substituted, the phrase might still be intelligible, but it would be 'not English.' It should also be borne in mind that the same idea is expressed in different terms under different circumstances, as for example in speaking of oneself, or of others, or to others. Certain words and phrases again are chiefly used in the affirmative, others chiefly in the interrogative or chiefly in the negative. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.