Boundless thanks to Tanglewest and the mysterious Raymond. Not only were they my companions from first to last while I wrote this book, but they also contributed directly to the text. Via what were, to me, unknown highways and byways of the language, they uncovered material both invaluable and priceless. At the same time, their bracing contempt for some of what I ran past them kept us all amused.
My thanks also to Geoff Pullum, Ida Toth, Julie Barrau and Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade, who very kindly fielded my more outlandish queries; of course they are in no way responsible for what I did with their answers. I am grateful, too, to Katharine Gowers, Timothy Gowers and Helen Small for their generously detailed responses to the MS in its penultimate draft—cleaving, here, to the ordinary sense of the word ‘penultimate’.
This book would have been markedly different were it not for the OED. I am grateful to all who work on it. I refer repeatedly on these pages to its wisdom; it was my constant resource. I would like to note that it was freely available to me online because I am a member of my local library, in Summertown, which brilliantly struggles on despite every attempt to close it down.
At Penguin, my thanks to Jessica Harrison and to Rebecca Lee, on whom I have learnt to rely—as also to Stephen Ryan, likewise. And special thanks to Tim Waller, best of copy-editors, which I fear he rather needed to be.
Lastly, I would like to thank Eric Griffiths, who, when I mentioned to him what I was up to in writing this book, very sweetly gave me his copy of Johnson’s dictionary.