LIGHT OF PHRASE AND FULL OF USE

Fifteen Thousand Useful Phrases by Grenville Kleiser (Funk & Wganalls Company, 1917)

Well, Grenville Kleiser really knocked it out of the park with this one. The subtitle of this gem tells you everything you need to know:

"A practical handbook of pertinent expressions, striking similes, literary, commercial, conversational, and oratorical terms, for the embellishment of speech and literature, and the improvement of the vocabulary of those persons who read, write, and speak English."

Imagine, 15,000 useful phrases at your very fingertips, as fresh and vital today as they were in 1917! Truly an embarrassment of riches.

From the Literary Expressions chapter:

A nameless sadness which is always born of moonlight

A queer, uncomfortable perplexity began to invade her

The leaves syllabled her name in cautious whispers

jealousies and animosities which pricked their sluggish blood to tingling

From the Striking Similes chapter:

A glacial pang of pain like the stab of a dagger of ice frozen from a poisoned well

Men moved hither and thither like insects in their crevices

The old books look somewhat pathetically from the shelves, like aged dogs wondering why no one takes them for a walk

From the Conversational Phrases chapter:

I am anxious to discharge the very onerous debt I owe you

Personally I confess to an objection

You speak in enigmas

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Ka-boosh! Grenville Kleiser just blew my mind.

I am anxious to discharge the very onerous debt I owe you