Among the legacies of David Foster Wallace, the pioneering postmodernist who produced influential essays, short stories and the novel “Infinite Jest” before his 2008 suicide, count this: Antonin Scalia, author. Or, at least, co-author.

“He was a very personable fellow,” Justice Scalia says of Mr. Wallace in an interview. “As co-Snoots, we got along very well,” he adds, using a term Mr. Wallace popularized for those whose taste in diction runs to the persnickety. According to a 2001 Wallace essay, it could stand for “Syntax Nudniks of Our Time.” Their relationship indirectly helped spawn the book described in this story from today’s paper.

Justice Scalia made a point of meeting Mr. Wallace during a 2007 visit to Claremont, Calif., where the shaggy-haired writer, sometimes seen in a do-rag, taught at Pomona College. The two had lunch, says Bryan A. Garner, a lexicographer and legal-writing consultant from Texas who arranged the encounter.