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 artists of the day (David Essex, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Yes, Soft Machine...). After a stint as house husband in the 1980s he accepted a post in the IT department at Sheffield Hallam University and was chained to it until 2006.