the words we need to understand our shallow water regions, once the primary landscape of America and now facing extinction, both physical and linguistic. This small book is an intriguing and valuable addition to our knowledge of a changing landscape. Literary, etymological, historical, and vernacular investigations of such varied terms as “guzzle,” “creek,” and “chartreuse,” Stilgoe’s definitions are lyric explanations of words whose original meanings have been eroded by time.

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