Contents

• Once upon a word : word histories, mysteries, hoaxes, and hype : sorting the tall tales from the truth
• A slough of solecisms : wherein the author leads you safely out of a morass of mistakes and misperceptions into the clear, comforting light of correct English
• The grandiloquent gumshoe : words recovered, discovered, and devised
• The elegance of style : distinctions, clarifications, niceties, and other little things that make your language more polished and precise
• A civil tongue : wherein the author launders your pronunciation and presses you to speak with propriety and poise
• Born in the U.S.A. : some quintessentially American words and expressions, from okay to humongous, with some other American stuff thrown in just for fun
• The wonder of words : a fascinating farrago of word lore and wordplay that just didn’t fit anywhere else