I received this letter today (October 16, 2017) from Forum contributor Oscar P. Lagman, an MBA professor and businessman who also writes political commentary for a business newspaper:Joe,
When an OFW recruiter-friend asked me in 2004 to give English lessons to those bound for the US, I got me several handbooks on American idioms, a few written by locals but one by three American PhDs, the
Handbook of Commonly Used American Idioms, Fourth Edition. Well, my friend’s business ran into bureaucratic problems and I never got to share with his recruits my knowledge of American expressions.
THE FIFTH EDITION OF THE HANDBOOK BY MAKKAI ET AL
But the handbooks have proved useful to me all these years. There are idioms in the books of locals not found in the PhDs’ book, the cover of which says it has more than 2,500 idioms. Yet I have come across “Americanisms” that I can’t find in any of the books.
By the way, my blog is called “Splitting Hairs,” an idiom I chose from several possibilities found in the PhDs’ handbook. A number of business associates and former students told me that the blog’s name suited me to a T for that’s what I am always doing as a businessman and as an MBA professor and also as a political commentator—splitting hairs.
Oscar