Challenging Words for Smart People is not for everyone. But if you are heels-over-head nuts about language and have a passion for snatching significance from the mass data swirling around us, you will share in its pages some sublime adventures in re-creation-al linguistics. Each chapter in Challenging Words for Smart People states a challenge. In the process of meeting those tests, your axons, dendrites, ganglia, and synapses will get quite a workout as you engage in a series of push-ups of the mind and aerobics of the brain. Throughout his career, Dr. Richard Lederer has epitomized “learning dressed up to have fun.” His mission is to impose order on chaos and sprinkle fairy dust on the mundane. Enter this great banquet hall of words and you will taste the abundant harvest of our bountiful, multifoliate English language.