Not a Succedaneum ...

Larry reads the obits again (link), Today's subject is Laurence Urdang, dictionaryologist, who died Thursday at 81:

In 1972 he compiled The New York Times Everyday Reader’s Dictionary of Misunderstood, Misused, and Mispronounced Words. It was a book that was not supposed to be a comprehensive work, just an enjoyable one for word enthusiasts. Or as Mr. Urdang put it himself in the introduction:

“This is not a succedaneum for satisfying the nympholepsy of nullifidians. Rather it is hoped that the haecceity of this enchiridion of arcane and recondite sesquipedalian items will appeal to the oniomania of an eximious Gemeinschaft whose legerity and sophrosyne, whose Sprachgefühl and orexis will find more than fugacious fulfillment among its felicific pages.”

Afterthought: don't recall that I ever saw the NYT dictionary, his work sounds like a mirror of the work of this guy.