Word: englishes
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...oddly spelled worry and Mr. Wu's woe were both responses to the virtually worldwide acceptance by news organizations and academic institutions of a different system of spelling Chinese names in English, called Pinyin. The changeover was started by Peking (um, er, Beijing) on Jan. 1, when the government of Zhongguo (otherwise known as China) decreed that in all its foreign-language publications Pinyin would replace the traditional Wade-Giles system of romanization. Agencies of U.S., British, French and other Western governments subsequently followed suit, as did news media around the world, including TIME. (One notable exception: London...
Although few leaders in the Caribbean had been fond of the flamboyant Sir Eric, they were alarmed by the precedent that might be set by a coup d'état-the first for the English-speaking islands of the area. Barbados, Jamaica, Dominica, Guyana and St. Lucia issued a stuffily worded statement that the coup had been "contrary to the traditional method of changing governments" in the region...
...trials often hinge on the victim's word against the defendant's, a standard defense tactic has long been to make the woman appear to have been seeking sex. Courts allowed this, generally following the admonitory dictum on rape laid down in the 17th century by the English jurist Sir Matthew Hale: "An accusation easily to be made and hard to be proved, and harder to be defended by the party accused, tho never so innocent." Over the years, rape became encrusted with rules to protect men from vengeful women: almost anything about the victim...
...dictionary, which serves as a guide to British, rather than American usage was compiled by a woman, Joyce M. Hawkins, 50. Aware that "chairperson" and its kin (e.g., "spokesperson") are increasingly accepted in the U.S., she notes, "In this country, chairperson is treated with mild amusement." The huge Oxford English Dictionary first included "chairman" a century ago, and, as Hawkins points out, its original usage made no sexual distinction. Still, Hawkins' dictionary tolerates "chairwoman," which it defines as a "female chairman...
Their roots are romantic enough. The Cajuns' Acadian (Nova Scotian) ancestors founded a colony on Canada's Bay of Fundy in 1604, and by 1755 had transformed the wilderness into a bucolic countryside. Then came a scheming English Governor who hated the French. In an act of genocide that Henry Wadsworth Longfellow later made a cause célèbre with his poem Evangeline, the British jammed thousands of Acadians onto prison ships and scattered them throughout the Old and New Worlds...