Outskirts Press, INC.

Did you “hear it on the grapevine”? Keep your “eyes peeled” as this book explores the wonderful world of idioms—sayings that appear to mean one thing but actually mean another. Written primarily for young adults and not-so-young adults, Improvise, Adapt, Overcome: How to Understand Common American Idioms provides a different perspective of the English language.

Idioms are so much a part of our everyday language that we may not even notice that phrases like “break a leg” do not make literal sense. If we say it’s raining cats and dogs, it doesn’t mean animals are falling from the sky but rather that the rain is really coming down. An expression like “killing two birds with one stone” becomes an idiom when its figurative meaning is understood by a culture, subculture, or social group. The English language is liberally sprinkled with these idioms, which often have an interesting origin, so “don’t miss the boat” and “don’t drag your feet”—take a look at some American idioms!