This article is about some very short words: the permutations for monosyllables in common use in standard British English having the phonetic pattern: single consonant + short vowel + single consonant. It is similar, therefore, to my article ‘Consonantal beginnings’ (ET80), in which I looked at what pairs of consonantal sounds could be found at the beginnings of English words. The pronunciation is to be taken as that given in the OED for British English.

With the change of linguistic, cultural and ethnic landscapes, multilingual, multicultural and multi-ethnic realities are increasing globally. In the case of the UK, the 2011 Census showed that the Asian or Asian British ethnic group category had one of the largest increases since 2001, with a third of the foreign-born population of the UK (2.4 million) now identifying as Asian British (Office for National Statistics, 2013). It is not surprising then, given the aforementioned demographic situation, to see many Asian-origin words in the English language. East Asian words are now entering into the English lexicon with unprecedented speed as a consequence of increased contact between East Asia and the English-speaking world.

Excerpts from the cultural identity narratives and follow-up interviews of a group of ethnic Chinese majors in English at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, identifying recurrent issues and metaphors.

IN HONG KONG, how have recent political events such as the Handover (change of sovereignty from Britain to China) in 1997 impacted on young people's sense of self? What cultural groups do they now identify with and why? What self-labels do they prefer? This article reports on a qualitative, sociocultural investigation that took place at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, a bilingual English/Chinese institution. Hong Kong have had a significant impact on shaping and sometimes changing students' cultural identities. The Handover, in particular, caused them to reflect on and even question their place in the world. Just before the change of sovereignty, many applied for passports whose nature sometimes brought them into conflict with their parents and grandparents.

The case for and against English as tomorrow's ‘Single European Language’

One never quite knows what will catch on with ET readers and what will pass unremarked. Certainly, Louise Sylvester's piece ‘Unusual and dialect terms for scarecrows’ in ET42 (Apr 95) has prompted a remarkable – and painstakingly detailed – response, in the two replies that follow.

A consideration of recent attitudes to teaching the traditional literary canon of English within the cultural tradition of the Western world

An outline of how children acquire English as a mother tongue

PETER BARRY considers the half-hidden agenda behind the names given to shoes in Britain

A rare glimpse into a problem in the world of medical lexicography, focusing on the eponyms diverticulum of Kommerell and Gerbode defect

The position of ‘E’, for English, has always been at the forefront of all the acronyms of language learning and descriptions of world trends in English language teaching and acquisition, EFL, ESL, ELT, ESP, EIL, ELF, or second only to ‘T’ for teaching, TEFL and TESOL. We have become so used to seeing the letter ‘E’ out there in front, the Theme rather than the Rheme, that we do not even seem to question that position anymore. Despite developments in the study of World Englishes (Kachru, 1985, 1990, 1991, 2005; Jenkins, 2003; Bolton, 2005, 2006; Canagarajah, 2006, 2007, 2009) and a supposedly secondary role for so-called Native English and the Native English speaker, we continue to place the ‘E’ at the front, as though we have no option but to accept its primacy in every concept. If we always place ‘E’ at the beginning though, as the defining Theme, surely we are giving both it and its origin England a leading role in all conceptual beginnings. The Theme after all is always the principal actor, the familiar, whilst the Rheme is the unfamiliar and undefined object (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004), but what English is now, in its global context, is exactly that, the unfamiliar and undefined object. In the following article I will argue for a rethinking of our terminology, particularly regarding the use of the acronym ELF (English as a Lingua Franca), and how perhaps we should be thinking more carefully about our choice of acronyms in order to be more precise about our approach to the study of English in the changing world.

The aim of this review is five-fold: (1) to consider one both as an indefinite pronoun meaning ‘someone’ or ‘a person’ and as a self-inclusive pronoun; (2) to investigate the possessives and reflexives used with one; (3) to pinpoint in time the arrival of one's and oneself; (4) to show differences between British and American use; and (5) to look at parallels to self-inclusive one in English and other languages.

This paper identifies discrepancies between prescriptive grammar rules concerning the number of the indefinite pronoun none and the actual use of this pronoun in modern academic English as shown in the Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English (MICASE) and Michigan Corpus of Upper-level Student Papers (MICUSP). Whereas prescriptive rules state that the number of none is determined by its referent or by the user's desired effect, the analyses of the MICASE and MICUSP search results suggest that, regardless of the modality of discourse, (1) the number of none with an anaphoric referent is determined by the number of its referent and (2) the principle of proximity applies without exception when none is used as part of a ‘none of + singular noun/pronoun’ phrase and applies frequently but not always when followed by an ‘of + plural noun/pronoun’ phrase.

the year 2005 marks the 50th anniversary of the original publication of j. r. r. tolkien's celebrated novel the lord of the rings. voted both ‘the book of the century’ in a poll conducted by the uk book retailer waterstones in 1997 and ‘the uk's best-loved book’ in a bbc survey carried out in 2003, tlotr was adapted to the screen in in 2001 by the previously little-known director peter jackson and released in three parts between 2001 and 2003 to widespread popular acclaim. the present is the second of three linked discussions of tolkien's work and the media through which it has been channelled. the first appeared as ‘why the film version of the lord of the rings betrays tolkien's novel,’ in et83 (21:3). the third and closing article will appear in et85 (22:1).

NEW ZEALAND ENGLISH is one of the most closely studied national varieties of English outside of the USA and UK, and a source of significance for the dialect differentiation and historical evolution of English. Most of the work has been done in the relatively short period of about 15 years compared with the longer time frame of studies in British and American English. One reason for this is that New Zealand English has, from its beginning, benefited from significant co-operative and collaborative activity among New Zealand linguists.

English is regularly perceived to be the global language that is used for cross-cultural communication by people from around the world (e.g., Crystal, 2003). Following international trends, English has exerted a presence in the cultures, languages, and interactional patterns of the peoples of Asia (Kachru, 1998: 91). The status afforded English native and near-native speakers reflects the perceived importance and interpersonal functionality of English in the region, and efforts by Asian governments to teach English at younger ages, as well as the demand for English ability by corporations, the media, and individuals, demonstrate its perceived instrumentality. In spite of the presumption of usefulness, there have been surprisingly few studies investigating Asian learners' perceptions of and decision to use English in specific settings. There is also a need for research that extends beyond individual countries to include pan-Asian issues, particularly in the “lesser-researched expanding-circle societies, including … Japan … [and] Thailand” (Bolton, 2008: 9). In order to address this gap in the literature and inform discussions about the comparability of students across Asian Expanding Circle countries, the aim of the present study is to compare and contrast how students in one Southeast Asian Expanding Circle country (i.e., Thailand) and one East Asian Expanding Circle country (i.e., Japan) view the usefulness of English to their lives.