Thoughts about the proposed book of Barry's material

[Michael Quinion]

> Since Michael Quinion has a MS in progress on the topic Ron Butters
> an Larry Horn would like addressed, it seems best to wait for the
> appearance of that book before starting what might be at least a
> partial duplication of that work.

My publishers would no doubt applaud this suggestion, but I don't
want to spoil anybody's fun!

> The rebutting of false etymologies can proceed along two lines:1)
> specifically addressing the issue of false etymologies (Michael
> Quinion's book) and 2) preparing thorough studies of individual
> items so that a single book would suffice to provide all the
> relevant information.

We certainly need both.

My text is written for a non-specialist market (though I hope not
thereby forfeiting its status as a work with respectable academic
underpinnings) and can provide no more than brief summaries of the
relevant facts.

Its style closely matches the one I have evolved on the World Wide
Words web site. Since that site currently gets about 600,000 page
hits a month, I am hoping the approach will prove popular enough to
delay the sad fate of previous books on word histories about which
Frank Abate so graphically wrote earlier today. Like all authors, I
live in hope ...


--
Michael Quinion
Editor, World Wide Words
E-mail: <TheEditor at worldwidewords.org>
Web: <http://www.worldwidewords.org/>