The Loom Of Language

Introduction 43
few of us are alert to tricks of expression peculiar to our own language.
In fact we need to know something about the language we habitually
speak before we can learn another one with the minimum of effort.
The object of Chapter IV of The Loom is to give first aid to the home
student who is not as yet language-conscious In this sense. The reader
who intends to use it as a preliminary to the study of a new language
will find helpful hints in it to repay what has been an exploit of endur-
ance for the publisher and type-setter. The reader who is on the look-
out for a bright book for the bedside will do well to give it the go-by
or drink an old-fashioned one before getting down to it.