I’d like to thank all at Profile Books – with especial props to Andrew Franklin, Ed Lake, Penny Daniel, Valentina Zanca and the late John Davey – for their encouragement and (especially) patience. Caroline Wilding for a witty index, my favourite bit of the book, done fast. Also, all at Rogers, Coleridge and White, who are more like a family than an agency.
Thanks, too, to the many sensitive writers on language and usage I cite here, whether to usurp their authority, steal their insights or blacken their good names; I am a dwarf standing on the shoulders of giants (and the odd dwarf).
Finally, all my love and thanks go to my wife Alice (who puts up with a lot when I’m writing a book) and my three domestic dwarves, Marlene, Max and Jonah.