For the third edition of French Grammar and Usage we have made some of the explanations more reader-friendly, added some new examples and modified certain points in the light of comments received from our readers. We would particularly like to thank Penny Eley, Odile Cyrille-Thomas and Agnes Gower for their comments, and Seth Whidden's website (http://www86.homepage.villanova.edu/seth.whidden.html) for directing us to Jean Girodet's (1996) discussion of adjective agreement with gens. To maintain consistency in the tone of entries, we have not always taken up suggestions made by our readers, and we hope they will forgive us where we appear to have ignored their advice. For weaknesses in presentation that still remain, and for errors that were not noticed before the book went to print, we alone are to blame.
Roger Hawkins and Richard Towell
Colchester and Salford
January 2010