Green-Eyed Monsters and Good Samaritans: Literary Allusions in Everyday Language - Softcover

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How King Midas's touch became golden and other stories behind everyday phrases, idioms, and literary allusions

Finding silver would not spark the same excitement if all a prospector could say was, "There it is!" nor would anyone be menacing with the moniker "Arthur the Somewhat Disgruntled." But thanks to thousands of years of evolving language, we have words and phrases like "Eureka!" and "Attila the Hun" that bring color and vibrancy to our conversations and our writing.

Unfortunately, often lost in the millennia is the history of how these sayings came to be. Green-Eyed Monsters and Good Samaritans uncovers the tales behind more than 175 phrases, drawing from the Bible, Greek and Roman mythology, the works of Shakespeare, and other literary resources.

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Eureka! This book will send wordsmiths and language lovers alike to seventh heaven

He's a Good Samaritan. It's time to pay the piper. Don't count your chickens before they are hatched. We use phrases like these all the time, but did you ever wonder why? Why isn't he a Good Norwegian? Is it ever time to pay the drummer? And why do we avoid counting chickens instead of, say, ducklings? The answers are here in this colorful compilation of the true stories behind everyday words and phrases.

Drawing from the Bible, Greek and Roman mythology, the works of Shakespeare, and other sources, this insightful collection explains the fascinating origins of more than 175 common expressions, including:

• Seventh Heaven: The highest level of heaven in the Islamic Koran; a place of total happiness
• Wear Your Heart on Your Sleeve: From the time of chivalry, when a knight carried a token of fidelity from his ladylove on his sleeve
• My Name Is Mudd: From Dr. Mudd, who haplessly mended the broken leg of President Lincoln's assassin
• Snafu: The World War II soldier's shorthand for "situation normal, all fouled up"
• Green-Eyed Monster: The jealous beast that Shakespeare's Iago warned Othello to look out for