Download or read book Cassell Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins written by Nigel Rees and published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. This book was released on 1998-01-01 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Have any idea where the word "nerd" came from, or "twerp"? This dictionary starts where ordinary references beg off. *Discover that bad hair day was originated by California teenagers in the early 1990s. *Learn that bikini comes from the name of a Pacific island used in the 1940s for atomic bomb tests. *Learn why a flight data recorder is called a black box--even though it's orange. 224 pages 5 x 7 3/4.