English Past and Present

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Edited with Emendations
A. SMYTHE PALMER, D.D.
Author of ‘The Folk and their Word-lore,’ ‘Folk-Etymology,’ ‘Babylonian Influence on the Bible,’ etc.
London
GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS, Limited
NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO.
1905
On the whole more corrections have been required in English Past and Present than in The Study of Words owing to the sweeping statements which involve universal negatives—statements, e.g. that certain words either first came into use, or ceased to be employed, at a specific date. Nothing short of the combined researches of an army of co-operative workers, such as the New English Dictionary commanded, could warrant the correctness of assertions of this kind, which imply an exhaustive acquaintance with a subject so immense as the entire range of English literature.