And no, no, no! books were not to be scoured for rare words alone—he had to remind volunteers of this fact time and again. Readers must find and note all and any words that seemed interesting, or that were quoted in interesting and signifying ways or in ways that were good, apt, or pithy. As an example of the dangers of the process so far, he said, he had received no fewer than fifty quotes for the word abusion (which means “perversion of the truth”), but had had only five for the much more common word abuse. “My editors have to search for precious hours for quotations for examples of ordinary
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