the group consisting of hydrogen hydrocarbon radicals halohydrocarbon radicals having at least two carbon atoms between the halogen atom and the phenol nucleus hydrocarbonoxy radicals and halohydrocarbonoxy radicals having at least two carbon atoms between the halogen atoms and the phenol nucleus and q 39 q 34 and q 39 34 in addition may be halogen with the proviso that q and q 39 are preferably free of a tertiary carbon atom and n represents the total number of monomer residues and is an integer of at least 50 these can be prepared by following well known procedures such as those set forth in the patents referred to above the compositions of the invention can also comprise polyphenylene ether resins in admixture with alkenyl aromatic resins as defined by cizek u s pat no 3 383 435 and other thermoplastic elastomers conventionally used as auxiliary or modifying resins these are employed to improve the impact resistance of articles molded from the mixtures as is described in the cizek patent modifiers such as polybutadiene may be incorporated into the alkenyl aromatic resins to improve the properties of resultant compositions other such modifiers are also known these include block and hydrogenated block copolymers such as are described in u s pat no 3 660 531 to lauchlan et al or u s pat no 4 167 507 to haaf similarly graft modified polymers are described in u s pat nos 3 943 191 3 959 211 3 974 235 4.