[clivehawkins]

I've just bought the Oxford Dictionary of Idioms (ISBN 0194315452)and also Phrasal Verbs (ISBN 0194315436) mainly because I have one group who seem obsessed with learning idioms, even though they'd be better off trying to master the simple stuff first. They're pretty good.

You're quite right about usually getting it wrong and it does raise a smile or two on my part. I try to steer them away from idioms but they seem to have got this strange idea in their heads that this is the key to learning English.

The dictionaries are left in the classroom and they can consult them till the cows decide it's time to go home (or something like that) :-)