Flying by the Seat of Your Pants: Surprising Origins of Everyday Expressions Paperback – January 4, 2011

Got for my husband. He LOVED it! Very interesting and entertaining read.

This is a really cute little book, but a word of warning to those of you who prefer to learn about the idiomatic sayings of American English: this book is more for those who are interested in British English. There are a few sayings which cross over into both British and American English, but it is predominantly British. Still, it's a cute read for a short flight.

I love language. I love slang and colloquialisms, so it's no surprise that I looked forward to reading this book with a great deal of anticipation.Flying by the Seat of Your Pants is a good, solid gathering of everyday expressions for a beginner. For someone who's more conversant with expressions and their origins, there's not going to be much that's new although it may be fun to touch base again with old favorites and realize that your memory's still in good shape.I do have one word of warning for potential readers. The author, Harry Oliver, is British; therefore, many of these everyday expressions have their origins in the UK. For Anglophiles like me, this is no problem, but for those who aren't interested in how folks across the pond speak, they may want to give this compilation a miss. (On the other hand, why not broaden your knowledge a bit?)

This is a great book for anyone who likes language and is interested in finding out what certain phrases mean. Many of the phrases are familiar, but you may not know how they came about.

This book is good! It has lots of cool little tid bits. Fun to share with your family! Hope you enjoy!

This was bought as a gift for my grandson and I only looked at it briefly. It looked very interesting and he said he really enjoyed the book.

Although interesting, the material presented gives the impression that he made up some of it, or heard it on the street. I expected a much more scholarly treatment. As it is, I can't rely on the material in the book, and certainly will not quote anything in it.

When ordering this, I was not aware that this book was written by a British author. So all of the "everyday expressions" will not be familiar to you even AFTER reading the description of these obscure British sayings. Many of the other ones will be familiar to you, however, as we still use them. All in all, an interesting book.

Great book I really like the origins of certain words and phrases.I would highly recomend this to anyone that like this sort of thing.

Je ne puis donc faire aucun commentaire ne l'ayant pas lu.Je savais néanmoins qu'elle connaissait ce livre et qu'elle le désirait.Cordialement.