Italian words that resemble words in English but have different meanings are the cause of student bafflement and some hilariously mistaken usage. Examples of falsi amici that continue to amuse teachers of Italian include casino, which is a brothel or mess, not a gambling place, and intossicazione, which is food poisoning, not intoxication. Ronnie Ferguson has confronted the much-neglected problem of false friends, ' or deceptive cognates, with a dictionary which makes it possible for the student of Italian to alert her- or himself to the pitfalls. Accurate translation, essay work, and...