Gary Martin...

is the author of the Meanings and Origins section of the Phrasefinder site and of the Phrase A Week posts. The site, which he founded in 1997, grew out of an interest in language that was developed during his post-graduate research in 1985 and later while working in a research project in computational linguistics at Sheffield Hallam University.

The site initially hosted a searchable database of phrases and idioms (now provided independently as the Phrase Thesaurus).

Before turning to writing for a living he was, during the 1970s, a recording engineer working with many British musicians of the day. From the 1980s to the noughties he worked in the IT department at Sheffield Hallam University, leaving there in 2006.