THE AMERICAN LANGUAGE

This edition has been greatly enlarged and thoroughly rewritten. Every chapter has been scrutinized for errors, and nearly every page shows changes. The corrections and suggestions that accumulated after the publication of the first edition---they came from all parts of the world, and from observers of the most various equipment and accuracy---were of such bulk that they almost alarmed me into abandoning the work altogether, but after due prayer I finally tackled them, and the result is now spread before the nobility and gentry. I thought it well, in a book opening so much new ground, to document liberally, that possible successors might be spared the tedious searches that I had to make myself. In the revision I have pursued the same plan, and I believe that all the useful material is now charted. --H. L. Mencken