In modern publications, amateur speculations about the origin of words have become noticeably widespread. They are based not on the science of the history of languages, but on the naive idea that such speculations do not require any special knowledge, and simple guesses are enough. At the same time, on the basis of amateur guesses about the origin of words, such works often build completely fantastic conclusions about the history of entire nations. In the work of A. A. Zaliznyak "From Notes on Amateur Linguistics" it is shown how such speculations differ from professional linguistics and why they have no chance of revealing the true history of words. Particular attention is paid to the most striking example of the use of amateur linguistics to construct a fictitious history of many countries - the so-called "new chronology" of A. T. Fomenko. The second edition also includes the article "On the Book of Veles"