A Dictionary of Confusable Phrases

PRE‐PRINT: Dictionary of Confusable Phrases

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(published in Reference Reviews – Volume 25, Issue 5, 2011 pp. 28‐30)

Title: A Dictionary of Confusable Phrases: More Than 10,000 Idioms and Collocations Author: Dolgopolov, Yuri Publisher: McFarland Publisher address: Jefferson, NC ISBN/ISSN: 978‐0‐7864‐5855‐4 Date of publication: 2010 Pages: 397 Price: $55.00 Reviewer: Ken Irwin Reviewer affiliation: Wittenberg University This dictionary aims to fulfill a unique and useful purpose: to identify pairs of phrases (especially idiomatic phrases) that could be confused with each other and to explain the differences between them. The author identifies students of English as a second language as the primary audience for the work (p. 1), Such a guide to the idiosyncrasies of colloquial English is a welcome addition to the array of available idiom dictionaries, none other of which addresses such subtle pitfalls as the difference between “making a joke about something” and “making a joke of something” (p. 228) or “have a falling out” and “have a fallout” (p. 162). Entries are arranged in pairs (e.g. “have a way with someone / have one’s way with someone”, p. 165) and organized alphabetically by the first phrase in the pair. Phrase and Keyword indices in the back of the book will help steer users to relevant entries on occasions where the alphabetical arrangement is insufficient. Each phrase is accompanied by a definition as well as an example. Many phrases are accompanied by a designation of their context (e.g. “UK sl[ang].”, “coll[oquial].”, “Theatre”). Useful as this dictionary is, it is also quite flawed. Restricting the format to pairs of phrases rather than variously‐sized clusters of phrases leads to some odd quirks, and more common phrases are sometimes relegated to a lesser status and placement than more common ones. In the entry for “go round in circles / go round the houses” (p. 152), the first part of the entry includes two notes indicating relationships to other phrases (“also: run around in circles”, “Note: this expression does not correlate in meaning with the phrase go full circle”, and a definition and example for “go full circle”). There is no regional usage included here, but this reviewer would posit that at least in U.S. English, “go full circle” and “run around in circles” are more relevant phrases than “go round the houses”, but “go full circle” is not one of the head phrases. (It does appear in the indices.) A different arrangement might have mitigated this oddity. In other instances, common phrases are omitted entirely. An entry for “give someone a head” (headache) and “give someone his head” (free rein) overlooks any relation to the arguably more common phrase “give someone head” (oral sex) which would certainly be relevant to someone trying to find a correct usage or interpretation of these phrases or avoid embarrassing errors (p. 142). In light of the dictionary’s inclusion of other, coarser sexual slang, this omission may not be attributed to any puritanical authorial intent, so why the omission? Some entries suffer from excessively literal interpretations of idiomatic phrases. One entry defines “give oneself a shot in the arm” as “inject oneself with a drug”(p. 141), but misses the more usual metaphorical meaning. For comparison, the Oxford Dictionary of Idioms, offers the definition as “stimulus or encouragement”(Siefrieng, 2004, p. 260); the Cambridge Idioms Dictionary refers to “encouragement or energy” (p. 374).


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The sample sentences are described in the introduction as “authentic examples of usage” (p. 6), and indeed many appear to be drawn from real life source, but the sources are never cited. The reviewer’s research shows that sources include the BBC, professionally published novels, blog entries, and self‐ published novels available online, but the author makes no mention of where he drew his sample sentences. In at least one case, the sample sentence was lifted from another idiom dictionary, which seems particularly unprofessional. The entry for “get the short end of the stick / get the wrong end of the stick” (p. 138) includes the usage example “I said how nice he was and Julie got the wrong end of the stick and thought I wanted to go out with him,” which comes from the 1998 Cambridge International Dictionary of Idioms (Cambridge, p. 435). The book is bloated with some unnecessary entries. Several entries, e.g. “Adam and Eve / Adam‐and‐Eve [orchid]” (p. 11) note the differences between fairly rare botanicals and the more common things for which they were named. Other entries seem to have a fairly low standard for what is “confusable”, for instance “get the hots for someone” / “give it to someone hot” (p. 138); these phrases are not especially confusable, and even less so if the former phrase were listed in its more common form of “have the hots for someone”. Perhaps the most problematic entry is the one for “baby‐minder / babysitter” (p. 27). It defines the former (minder) as “a woman who takes small children into her own home and looks after them while their parents are at work”, and the latter (sitter) as “a woman who goes to [somebody] else’s home to look after small children while their parents are at work.” These definitions are fraught with excess specificity: neither a sitter nor a minder need be a woman; the children needn’t be small; the parents needn’t be at work. The distinction by location of service may have some currency but is certainly not universal. Neither word is identified as a regional variation, although “baby‐minder” is chiefly British (Schur, 2001; Gove, 1986). Finally, the examples of usage do nothing to clarify the distinction. In a particularly ironic move, the author uncritically includes some confusable vocabulary in the book’s front matter (and does so in quotes, for apparent reason). The preface tells us that the work is “designed to ‘diffuse’ potentially confusable expressions” (p. 1), while the introduction asserts that “learners are in urgent need for practical resource [sic] that will… ‘defuse’ potentially confusable multi‐ word units” (p. 3). Both “defuse” and “diffuse” are odd word choices here (“disambiguate” might have been better), and the authors use of the words does not instill confidence in his mastery of the subtleties of English. The work has some utility, but a surfeit of problems undermine its value, and the paperback volume does not justify its cost. A reader with a wide experience in the English language finds many flaws, and may wonder how many more go undetected. Inconsistency is an unwelcome characteristic in a reference book, and all the more so in one intended for English language learners. This work draws substantially on the author’s previously self‐published book, A Collection of Confusable Phrases (Dolgopolov, 2004). The small degree of change between that book and the current work is indicative of too‐light an editorial hand. The book has the potential for excellence, and will require a stronger editorial influence to achieve it. References Cambridge International Dictionary of Idioms, (1998), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.


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Dolgopolov, Y. (2004), A Collection of Confusable Phrases: False ‘friends’ and ‘enemies’ in idioms and collocations, Llumina Press, Coral Springs, FL. Gove, P. B. (Ed.) (1986), Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, Merrian‐Webster, Springfield, MA. Schur, N. W. (2001), British English A to Zed, Rev. ed., revised by Ehrlich, E., Facts on File, New York, NY. Siefring, J. (Ed.) (2004), The Oxford Dictionary of Idioms, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK.