The director of Longman dictionaries looks at a unique and profitable species of wordbook, the ELT or EFL dictionary.

What factors operate over the centuries to rub a language like English down, and what factors serve to counteract such processes?

Following up Fred Parrott's article ‘The word-watchers’, in ET 13, a retired publisher looks hard at changing usage.

A veteran writer argues that the English language owes ‘a linguistic debt to the docile sheep and its wool’.

A wide range of newsletters, clippings and cuttings, catalogues and correspondence arrives (and is welcomed) on ET's editorial desk. From the mass that goes into our files comes this mix of curious usages, neologisms and nonce forms.

Examination, curricula, and standards of education are currently hot topics in many parts of the world. English Today talks to ROBERT BLACKBURN, Deputy Director General of the International Baccalaureate Organization, about how the IBO does its work.

A professor of English reports on what may be a growing challenge to conventional orthography

Leading dictionaries do not always provide guidance on the incorporation of exotic words into the English spelling system, as this article abundantly demonstrates.

Below are some excerpts from Indian and British English: A Handbook of Usage and Pronunciation, by Paroo Nihalani, R. K. Tongue, and Priya Hosali (Oxford University Press, India, 1979, 3rd impression 1987, pp. 260, ISBN 0 19 561864 5, Rupees 50, £3.95). Of this work, the Indian Journal of Linguistics says: ‘It is invaluable as a handy reference book and should take its place on the reference-shelf of all Indians’, while The Hindu (Madras), calls it ‘an invaluable guide to those interested in the English language’. We endorse these comments.