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I was about twelve years old somewhat more than seventy-five years ago, a span of time that I suspect most readers of this magazine will find hard to comprehend. In a second-hand bookshop in Brooklyn I came upon a bulky book called Lippincott’s Pronouncing Gazeteer of the World: A Complete Pronouncing Gazeteer or Geographical Dictionary. The price was negligible, even for a twelve-year-old schoolboy, and—you guessed it. I bought it. I still have it, somewhere. I did not then nor ever since have any real need for a pronouncing gazeteer of the world, but what fascinated me about it (a