On one point students of English all agree: English pronunciation and usage are complicated, irregular and frequently confusing. This book, an exhaustive compilation of linguistic curiosities, lists: words that rhyme although their spelling is quite different (e.g. ache/lake, blood/mud, ferry/bury) words of similar derivation but with different meanings (e.g. official/officer, effective/efficient) homophones, i.e. words of similar pronunciation but of different meaning (e.g. affect/effect) homographs, i.e. words which are written the same way but which have different pronunciations and meanings (e.g. bow, a device for shooting arrows, bow, the front part of a ship, and bow, to bend over) homonyms, i.e. words whose spelling and pronunciation are identical but whose meanings differ (e.g. bark, the noise made by a dog, and bark, the shell of a tree) Aimed at both students and teachers, Odds and Ends of English Usage is an entertaining and instructive way to explore the byways of the language
