Howard Richler is a long-time language journalist who has written four previous books on language: Global Mother Tongue: The Eight Flavours of English (Véhicule Press, 2007), A Bawdy Language: How a Second-Rate Language Slept Its Way to the Top (Stoddart, 1999), Take My Words, a Wordaholic's Guide to the English Language (Ronsdale Press, 1996), and The Dead Sea Scroll Palindromes (Robert Davies Publishing, 1995). Richler makes his home in Montreal.