Greenery offers a new faith in science after decades in which the image of the scientist has been that of an amoral destroyer, and after centuries – effectively since Newton – in which he has appeared to be opposed to all that was most preciously human’ (Bryan Appleyard, ‘God and the scientists join hands in a quantum leap’, The Sunday Times, 3 Jun 90).

Subsidies for jazz music have turned into some sort of bad Polish joke. The Solidarity government has opened the country's coffers and found them empty. So: uncompetitive industries will fall by the wayside, magazines that are not viable will fold, and prices will adjust to market level. And it looks like perestroika is the price to be paid for glasnost, or jazznost as it has been called in this context. In the bad old days, Poland's wonderfully evil system subsidized jazz musicians to play their hatred for it. They learned how to suck money from the system while attacking it. This produced some ironic, passionate music. Now the laucky ones play on Nor-wegian cruise boats (Mike Zwerin, ‘Will Jazznost play as Well When the Market Calls the Tune?’, International Herald Tribune, 3 Nov 89).

‘All other regions of the Third World made economic progress in the 1980s; not sub-Saharan Africa. Arms are not the only reason. Every year at least $15 billion in capital leaves Africa. Much of it is booty, siphoned off by vampire elites. For example, last April the Christian Association of Nigeria revealed that more than 3,000 Nigerians operated Swiss bank accounts and that Nigerians were near the top of the list of Third World patrons of Swiss banks.

A language teacher reflects on language learning

A report on the nature and evolution of on-line e-messages

A report on the language of kinship in Aboriginal English.

A review of the development and nature of Pakistani English.

Two seasoned Australian lexicographers sit down to a session of stubbies, grog, cheque-men and jamberoos.

KAZUO KATO replies to Torkil Christensen, whose article ‘Grammatical overkill?’ appeared in ET20 (Oct 89).

Judith Cowan, who lives and works in Quebec, has cast the same poem in Canada's two official languages. We persuaded her to add something on how such bilingual artistry can come about.

An innovative analysis of special kinds of lexical ambiguity

In ET (Jul 89), Peter Williams reviewed ‘A Dictionary of Surnames’ by Patrick Hanks & Flavia Hodges (Oxford, 1988). One possibility not envisaged in that review, and probably not in the dictionary either, is the use to which LAURENCE URDANG has put surnames in the following poem, an echo of Longfellow composed to ‘celebrate’ St Valentine's Day, 1990. As part of his work, the writer alternates between Old Lyme, Connecticut, and Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, where every name italicized in the poem can be found in the local telephone directory.

It is often reported that English elements are abundant in Japanese television commercials and print advertising and that the primary function of English words, phrases, and sentences used in advertising texts seems to give the product or service a modern touch.

A consideration of thingummies, doohickeys and other vague words.

GEOFFREY KINGSCOTT, editor of ‘Language International: The magazine for the language professions’, in his editorial of September/October 1989 expressed his concern about the spread of ‘Foreigners' English’ in recent years. We reproduce his comments here and both he and ET would be glad to have readers' views on this matter.

A concise history of English used in different ways for different purposes