This book is written primarily for foreign students and teachers of English. That purpose governs the whole presentment and organization of the material and the type of explanation offered. To my own fellow- countrymen it may, at the highest reckoning, offer a means of bringing to the surface hidden memories of curious and amusing words. Probably it brings them little that is new, but it may stimulate them to seek out and regroup their own linguistic experiences. In fifty years' time the work might even claim the atten- tion of the English philologist, whom it will provide with a certain...