USAGE: " Handbook" was Re: Question about word-initial velar nasal

In a message dated 10/24/2004 1:52:41 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
chris.maths_student@NTLWORLD.COM writes:

>Its called a handbook and its volumes!?!? Isn't the whole idea that a
>handbook is something you can hold in your hand? Something handy?
There seem to be a great many multi-volume "handbooks."  I think I mentioned
on an earlier occasion the Smithsonian's 20-volume _Handbook of North American
Indians_.

I think it was the Germans who started the practice of writing huge
multi-volume scholarly works and calling the result a "Handbuch."

Doug