Collins Cobuild English Guides 2

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Foreword The Cobuild Guides each deal with a key area of English. In addition to our generál dictionaries and Grammar we have been planning for somé time to add smaller but more detailed handbooks dealing with important aspects of grammar and usage. Each book is specially designed for a specific job. Most have a reference-book style, and somé include practice material as weil. They are all based on real examples drawn from the 20 millión words of the Birmingham Collection of English Text supplemented by a further 5 millión words from the Times newspapers held on computer in Birmingham. The advantages of a Guide which deals with one particular part of English are that there is room for more information than in a big generál dictionary, and that this information is easier to find. Making new words by adapting old ones is very popular at present, and many of the prefixes and suffixes described here are being used freely by writers and speakers of English. This book will give you a similar freedom. This process of forming new words has been going on throughout the long history of English, and a number of words show by their structure that they were once förmed from prefixes and suffixes; where they have become rather specialized in meaning they are listed to remind you to look them up in a dictionary. Many words förmed from Greek and Latin prefixes and suffixes are included even though they are not productive in modern English. Showing the way they are förmed will help you understand their meanings. I hope that we have selected useful information and made it easy for you to find what you want, to understand it, and to use it with confidence. Please write to me with any comments or suggestions about how to improve Cobuild publications. Vissza