文档介绍：The Word Detective
Evan Morris
TO MY PARENTS,
WILLIAM AND MARY DAVIS MORRIS,
WHO TAUGHT ME TO LOVE WORDS,
AND TO MY BROTHER,
JOHN BOYD MORRIS,
1938-1999,
WHOSE HUMOR, DECENCY, AND COURAGE
LIVE IN THE HEARTS OF
ALL WHO KNEW HIM.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I wish to thank, first and foremost, the faithful readers of my column, without whose support and
encouragement the present book would not exist and I would probably be selling time shares in
Arkansas over the . I would also like to thank the newspapers that carry my column, even the
one that edits out all the funny stuff before printing it. I'm sure it has its reasons.
I would also like to thank my wife, Kathy Wollard, and my agent, Janis Donnaud, for their
encouragement, persistence, and good advice; my son, Aaron; and my editor, Amy Gash, and all the
folks at Algonquin for shepherding this book into print.
Thanks are also due to all my friends at Skadden, Arps, without whose support and encouragement I
would still be working there, and (in no particular order) to Barry Popik, Susan Davis, Jeff Coleman,
Lynn Kotula, Dan Poor, John Guthrie, Jim Vincent, Jesse Sheidlower, William Safire, Susan Cox,
Debra Solomon, James Himber, Pete Hamill, Rick Freyer, Nancy Hoffman, Vincent Siino, Steven
Stark, all my siblings, all my in-laws in Ohio, Terry O'Connor, Becky Lorberfeld, Ray-Bari Pizza, Jill
Cornell, Benjamin Wheeler, the nice folks at Zingone Grocers on Columbus Avenue, Mark Wall, Susie
Day, Eloise Eisenhardt, Jon Rosenblatt, Spencer Beckwith, Frank Pike, Dave Hill, Jon Bassewitz,
Esteban Chalbaud, Dan Dial, the New York Daily News, Reg Gale, Tony Marro, Libby Colahan, Mike
Morris, Jane Baum, Sonia Dinham, Marjorie Zaik, Fran Wood, Jonathan Powell, Lee Morrow, the
American Dialect Society, Brownie, Pokey, Ernie, Rufus, Fang, and Puff, and anyone who ever laughed
at my joke about the penguins in the convertible.
INTRODUCTION
It all started with sticky dimes. It was 1958, I wa