Nuts and Bolts: acknowledgements.

 At (nearly) the end of a long long year, it seems a good time to turn to acknowledgements, which come, usually, at the end of a book.

Mostly, the acknowledgments are an opportunity to flatter the author's editor and agent (upon whom he depends for his income), to boast a little about famous friends, to establish the author's artistic credentials by hinting at the agony of composition (and his intellectual credentials by listing his sources) and to show off about his family and his own popularity by listing his many many world-wide friends.

This rather famous example was written by Brendan Pietsch, assistant professor of religious studies at Nazarbayev University in Astana, Kazakhstan, in his book Dispensational Modernism, which was published in 2016 by the Oxford University Press.

I blame all of you. Writing this book has been an exercise in sustained suffering. The casual reader may, perhaps, exempt herself from excessive guilt, but for those of you who have played the larger role in prolonging my agonies with your encouragement and support, well...you know who you are, and you owe me.

Masterly, I call that.

And I've published a lot of books with the Oxford University Press, so I should know.

Word To Use Today: acknowledgement. The Middle English aknowen means to confess or recognise.