conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide a description for a book titled The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms about I>The, American, Heritage with the genre: Reference, Dictionaries & Thesauruses.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Nothing expresses the vitality, history, and character of a language quite like its idioms. Ask any non-native English speaker to make sense of a phrase such as &quot;beg the question&quot; or &quot;keep your eyes peeled&quot;; they can't do it. Idioms don't translate, which is what makes them such intriguing mirrors of how a culture evolves along with its speech. <I>The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms</I> includes almost 10,000 of these figures of speech, slang phrases, clich&eacute;s, colloquialisms, and proverbs, from &quot;ace in the hole&quot; to &quot;zoom in on.&quot; Each entry defines an idiom, uses it in a sentence, then pinpoints its historical origins when possible. Some idioms, it turns out, preserve words or word uses that have otherwise fallen out of use (&quot;one fell swoop&quot;); others allude to long-forgotten catch phrases from movies or advertising (&quot;more bounce for the ounce&quot;). Consider, for instance the phrase &quot;funny bone&quot;--actually a pun on &quot;humerus,&quot; the Latin name for the bone of the upper arm. Or the expression &quot;moment of truth,&quot; a translation from the Spanish phrase originally referring to bullfighting--and first popularized, not surprisingly, by <A HREF="/exec/obidos/Author=Hemingway%2C%20Ernest/${0}">Ernest Hemingway</A>. <I>The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms</I> is like an archeological dig through the vernacular, and it unearths treasures such as these on every one of its pages. All those interested in language or its history should keep a copy on their library shelves.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Swap the first and the last sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: All those interested in language or its history should keep a copy on their library shelves. Ask any non-native English speaker to make sense of a phrase such as &quot;beg the question&quot; or &quot;keep your eyes peeled&quot;; they can't do it. Idioms don't translate, which is what makes them such intriguing mirrors of how a culture evolves along with its speech. <I>The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms</I> includes almost 10,000 of these figures of speech, slang phrases, clich&eacute;s, colloquialisms, and proverbs, from &quot;ace in the hole&quot; to &quot;zoom in on.&quot; Each entry defines an idiom, uses it in a sentence, then pinpoints its historical origins when possible. Some idioms, it turns out, preserve words or word uses that have otherwise fallen out of use (&quot;one fell swoop&quot;); others allude to long-forgotten catch phrases from movies or advertising (&quot;more bounce for the ounce&quot;). Consider, for instance the phrase &quot;funny bone&quot;--actually a pun on &quot;humerus,&quot; the Latin name for the bone of the upper arm. Or the expression &quot;moment of truth,&quot; a translation from the Spanish phrase originally referring to bullfighting--and first popularized, not surprisingly, by <A HREF="/exec/obidos/Author=Hemingway%2C%20Ernest/${0}">Ernest Hemingway</A>. <I>The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms</I> is like an archeological dig through the vernacular, and it unearths treasures such as these on every one of its pages.Nothing expresses the vitality, history, and character of a language quite like its idioms.