Food and drink idioms in English : "a little bit more sugar and lots of spice"

Idioms carry an aura of mystery for all speakers, owing to the discrepancy between their literal and non-literal meanings. The aim of this book is to clear up some of the mystery, by examining a series of expressions that have derived from the most instinctive and essential of all human behaviour: eating and drinking. The quantity and quality of 276 food and drink idioms is explored across two hundred and fifty years of English monolingual lexicography and forty years of usage as attested by contemporary linguistic corpora. The examination of the idioms’ syntactic, semantic, pragmatic, historical, social and cultural characteristics will foster in speakers a whole new approach to idiom comprehension and usage, as well as constitute thought-provoking ground for further research in other idiom domains.