The April 2005 issue, ET82, was hardly out when I began to think I'd been premature in what I wrote in its Comment. I noted there that the issue ‘had the smallest number of contributions ever listed: seven titles in all, whereas traditionally there have been ten or more’. The reason of course was the length of several of the articles: closer to ‘papers’ in standard academic journals (yet none the worse for it, readability being as safe as ever).

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 2001 by the previously little-known director Peter Jackson and released in three parts between 2001 and 2003 to widespread popular acclaim. But does the film version of The Lord of the Rings betray both the letter and the spirit of Tolkien's novel?

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.

An update on the world's newest lexicographical services. The computer and the Internet have become indispensable to the lives of educated people. As a result, ways of obtaining information have greatly changed. The readership of the printed media appears to have been gradually decreasing, something that may also happen with dictionaries. It has for example been noted that three mediums for dictionaries — paper, electronic gadgets, and the Internet — are now about equally popular with students. Gone therefore are the days when paper dictionaries dominated the reference world. For example, more than 70% of students interviewed at Hong Kong Polytechnic University claim that they use e-dictionaries more often than the traditional bulky paper products: among them, the most ‘bookmarked’ is the online version of the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary. Online dictionaries are now therefore the main force in word reference.

The pronunciation of names in times of conflict. Whenever people have wanted to express disrespect for a person or group — their indifference or disdain or outright hatred — they have traditionally selected a suitably offensive noun or phrase for the purpose. It is a practice that has persisted since time immemorial, and such name-calling is still a cultural feature that we pick up in our early school days. Typically, this sort of juvenile name-calling is an expression of personal animosity, and examples heard in England today include the traditional Teacher's pet! and Tell-tale! or the more recent Fatso! However, in recent years a general reaction against inter-racial name-calling has meant that such terms as Chink, nigger, yid and wog are no longer acceptable in polite discourse.

The various functions of a simple but complicated suffix. Present-day English has relatively few productive suffixes, but /-ij/, spelt both -y and -ie, as in bouncy and birdie, is one of the most striking. According to Quirk et al. in their Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language, these affixes ‘can be used fairly freely’ and they are ‘freely used with largely concrete nouns to form gradable adjectives’ (1985:1553).

First describing the rapid growth of English as a lingua franca in Europe and East Asia, and having drawn attention to similarities and differences in the evolution of the varieties of English worldwide, the author focuses on China where, as in so many other domains, growth and change are currently very rapid. She reports in particular on an investigation into 586 Chinese English teachers' attitudes to both the standard varieties of the language around the world and a new variety, China English. A majority of the teachers surveyed considers that China English will eventually become a standard variety of the language in its own right, and at least stand alongside the current national favourite, American English. In addition, the teachers' views on both the cultural content of teaching materials and the use of native speakers of English in Chinese institutions of education reflect both China's openness to the world and a strong adherence to its own culture. The signs are, she argues, that China English is on its way to becoming another world variety, which will happen when it has been adequately described, codified and officially recognized.

An inquiry into undergraduates' preferences, with repercussions regarding the nature and use of a distinctive ‘China English’. For many years, the standard varieties of British and American English have been accepted and promoted as the only internationally acceptable forms of Standard English, a view that has however, in recent years, been challenged in studies associated with ‘World Englishes’ and ‘English as an International Language’ (EIL). Within such frameworks, some linguists in China have proposed that ‘China English’ as an actual or potential standard variety should stand alongside the standard varieties of British, American, and other Englishes. If so, it follows that Chinese teachers would be better able to teach this variety than imported native English speakers. In order to investigate Chinese students' views on such matters, a research project was undertaken with subjects from eight universities in the People's Republic of China. The data gathered from questionnaires, group discussion and interviews indicate that Chinese students are positive towards both EIL and China English and that this in turn influences their preference for a Chinese rather than a native-speaker teacher of English.

IN ET81 Keith Davidson makes some criticisms of my article ‘Consonantal beginnings’ (ET80). His main points relate to the following: (1) the pronunciation of words such as tune and drink; (2) the difference between sph- and sf-; (3) consonant pairs in non-initial position. On all these, I think that Davidson has missed the point and has offered misleading criticism. Here, then, is my reply.

Creative wordplay in franglais: mixed messages in French publicity glimpsed from a bus.

A tale from the streets of New York. In the main story I focus on two people in particular as an example of the ways in which a writer's workshop helped awaken me to the lives outside the workshop of the participants.

An adapted and extended version of ‘The Big Three’, a paper presented to the Kongres Bahasa Utama Dunia (‘Congress of the World's Major Languages’), organized in October 2004 by the Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (‘Institute of Language and Literature’), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The Dewan, established in 1956, is committed to both linguistic and literary planning with regard to Bahasa Malaysia (Malay as used in Malaysia) and the recognition of Malay as a major Asian and world language.

Well, I have been called some things in my time, but never, never a ‘purist’! I have spent my life attacking language purists, and purists have spent their lives attacking me. So to see myself introduced thus at the end of Aysha Viswamohan's interesting paper on ‘Code-mixing with a difference’ (ET79: Jul 04) was quite a shock. ‘Many purists like David Crystal believe…’

David Crystal begins his article ‘The future of Englishes’ (ET58, Apr 99) with a plea for clarity in theoretical thinking and in observing the facts of language change. He sees intelligibility and identity/attitude as two key parameters for the existence of one or more languages, but his examples from Scandinavia and Yugoslavia are simply incorrect.