As this is my first note to the readers of Language in Society, I begin by expressing my gratitude to the former Editor-in-chief, William Bright, for his many years of splendid stewardship of the journal and for his kind help and patience in the changeover. I also want to thank the distinguished members of the Editorial Board, some of whom have seen unexpected extra years added to their terms while I have been getting organized. But mainly I write to explain the format of the present issue, with its four quite long articles and only six book reviews. This does not represent a change in editorial policy in the direction of a de-emphasis of book reviews or in favor of long papers. It does, however, represent a response to two problems. The first is that, while the time from submission to an editorial decision now averages about 4 months (a reasonable interval, considering that it can sometimes take weeks to find referees for an article), the time from acceptance of an article to publication in Language in Society is now at least a year, and often 18 months. I want to try to decrease that interval. The second is that I recently spent six months in Australia. It was impractical to forward books submitted for review from Tucson to Melbourne, so I commissioned only one or two book reviews between June and December 2000. The shift in balance of the present issue permits me to stretch out the book reviews