Richard Spears - NTCs dictionary of everyday American English expressions: presented according to topic and situation

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Every language has conventional and much used ways of expressing even the most commonplace requests, inquiries, or responses. Some of these expressions are idioms or idiomatic.

Others are perfectly understandable and literal English, but people unfamiliar with the language may have difficulty formulating them in typical and conventional ways. This book is a collection of more than 7,000 such expressions grouped into 774 topics that are listed under 18 major categories of social interaction. The complete list of major category headings and their topics can be found in the Topic and Situation Index, beginning on . Each of the 774 topics has been assigned a number and it is this number that is the basis of the indexing systems. These numbers appear at the top of each page of the body of the book to aid in finding a particular topic. The Word and Concept Index allows the user to locate a particular topic based on a key word or concept that is part of the topic.

See a complete explanation of how to use this index on

The meaning of the expressions can be determined from the topic heading. All the expressions under a particular heading convey essentially the same type of information. The expressions themselves contain hints and explanations where necessary. For instance, in the expression I got sidetracked. sidetracked = detoured; distracted the equal sign (=) indicates that the word or phrase on the left is defined as the word or phrase on the right. In the expression Can you stay for dinner? Can you Would you, Are you able to, Will you the that the word or phrase on the left can be replaced by any of the words or phrases on the right.

In the expression Get off your high horse. (informal)= Be less arrogant. the equal sign (=) at the beginning of the line indicates that a restatement of the entire expression follows. In the expression You and what army? (slang) the word slang in parenthesis indicates the register or usage of the expression. Other similar indicators are Biblical, clich, euphemistic, folksy, formal, French, German, idiomatic, informal, ironic, Italian, Japanese, jocular, juvenile, Latin, mild oath, mildly vulgar, oath, rude, sarcastic, Spanish, taboo, and vulgar. In the expression Fore! (said in golfing when the ball is struck) the information in parenthesis explains something about the context in which the expression is used. In the expression Good things come to him who waits. (Cliche.) the boldface type indicates that only the pronoun shown may be used correctly in the expression.

A pronoun having the opposite gender may not be substituted.

Basic Social Encounters Conversational Encounters
Polite Encounters Impolite Encounters Visits
Miscellaneous Expressions Personal Matters
Family Matters Money Matters Food and Drink
Health Employment Shopping Service Encounters
Telephones Travel and Transportation
Lodging Emergencies The book includes eighteen major category headings, under which the topics for each category appear in boldface type. The specific expression groups for each topic are then presented in the order in which they are found in the list of expressions. A topic number, rather than a page number, is provided at the end of each topic description, indicating where to find that topic in the list of expressions. For instance, if you wanted to find an expression having to do with a pain in the head, you would look under the category HEALTH for a group of expressions labeled Sickness. Under sickness you would find the expression group Describing a pain in the head Look for Describing a pain in the head at number 488 in the list of expressions. Morning. Mornin. (informal) How are you this bright morning? Good afternoon. Afternoon. Afternoon.

Good evening. Evening.

I havent seen you in years! Long time no see! (informal) I havent seen you in an age! I havent seen you in a month of Sundays!Next page