Two cities in England are Henley on Thames and Kingston upon Thames. Why does one city use "on" and the other "upon?" Both cities are on the same river. Both cities have two syllables in their names. Indeed, there is no difference between them that would explain why one city name uses the word on and the other the word upon. In other words, on and upon are synonymous.

While all English teachers will tell you English has a great many synonyms, the truth is that it actually has few words that are perfectly synonymous with each other. And, if you stop to think about it for more than a few seconds, you realize that makes sense. After all, there is little need for two different words that have exactly the same meaning. What English has, though, are a great many words whose nuances and connotative meanings differ enough to clearly make them totally separate words about roughly the same thing. For example, to all but young children the words daddy and father differ substantially. So, too, do the words house and home, at least for those who are thoroughly familiar with English.

This dictionary deals with a third category of words, those that its author, William Luellen, chooses to call similar-but-separate words. For more than a quarter century William Luellen has collected them, written about them in various places, and now for the first time has gathered all he currently has been able to identify into this dictionary.

Even though it is correctly called a dictionary it is unlike other dictionaries in several important ways. For one thing, it does not thoroughly document each listed word. The pronunciation is not given for most of the words either, nor are all of their possible meanings. Instead, clearly and as simply as possible William Luellen outlines the differences between (and sometimes among) words that seem to mean almost the same thing. As the title implies, the sole purpose of this book is to take pairs or groups of words that seem to mean almost the same thing and show why they do not mean exactly the same thing. They are, as the title states, similar but separate from each other. The main, and sometimes the only, thing this book does is explain exactly how their meanings are separate from each other and where it is appropriate (and not appropriate) to use each.

This is a book that will be as useful to word scholars as it is to those, such as crossword puzzle addicts, composers, and poets, who simply enjoy playing with words.

The price is $14.95 plus $2.00 per book for packaging and shipping plus a flat fee of $4.00 (regardless of the number ordered) for processing and handling your order.