Ms. Pare,
I have always found idioms interesting but did not really understand how confusing they can be to English learners. I understand the blank looks that one receives when using idioms, both from my work as a teacher when using idioms, both from my work as a teacher and from my wife’s family, immigrants from Viet Nam.

I would like to give you an idiom that my wife made up. It is “skin of the cat”. It is a combination of “by the skin of my tooth” and “there is more than one way to skin a cat”. Its meaning seems to be close to “by the skin of my tooth”. I have not been able to “unravel” where the “cat” comes in.

Thanks for writing your book. I think it will be useful for both my students and family.

Peter D.
Redlands, CA

                                                                       Feb 2006

Dear Ms. Pare,
       I have been enjoying your book so much! Gave my former students the second copy and I’m hoping we can re-start our lessons soon. Using your Body Idioms and More will be fun! I especially find helpful your explanations regarding which usages are more socially acceptable.
       I look forward to any other helps you might publish for teachers/students in ESL classes.

                                                                       Corinne H.
                                                                       Beaver Dam, WI

                                                                       February 25, 2006

Dear Ms. Pare,

In case you haven’t seen it, I enclose a print from the Manchester [England] Guardian Weekly concerning your book Body Idioms and More, the contents of which are self-explanatory. Is it obtainable in the US in paperback? If so, at what price and from whom?

You might be interested in the experience of one of my good friends who is a fellow patent attorney. He has a Japanese associate who is an ardent student of vernacular English, who once asked my friend, on the subject of idioms in English [apparently, idioms are not used in Japanese] if my friend could imagine what he thought the first time an American advised him to “sit-tight”.

Good luck with your book!!!

                                                                       Sincerely,

                                                                       William G.R.
                                                                       Wells, Maine