Pedro Carolino wrote this classic in the genre of unintentional humour to help Portuguese students peer into the murky bubble of English. Instead he added considerably to the murk. It seems Carolino knew next to no English and had no Portuguese–English dictionary to hand. Thus he was forced to embark on a convoluted workaround. For each entry he first consulted a Portuguese–French phrasebook, then a French–English dictionary. This complicated translatory journey led to some hilarious results. Carolino tried to cover his tracks by claiming in the preface to have made his book “clean of gallicisms and despoiled phrases.” As just a quick glance at the book's pages betrays, this was more than wishful thinking on Carolino's part. His failure is, however, comedy's success — the book is now known and loved for just the despoliation he tried to avoid.