Word: englishes
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Chinese are taking crash courses in foreign languages. More than 1 million copies of Radio Peking's English course have been sold in the capital. Some 10,000 Chinese students will be dispatched to study overseas, a development that will exert a profound, lasting effect on Chinese culture as the students return. Some of the cultural juxtapositions are startling: Haute Couture Designer Pierre...
...right hands, English is a precision instrument. And, like all such devices, it is alternately blunted and sharpened by its users. In 1978, many nicks and abrasions came from Washington. Ernest Boyer, U.S. Commissioner of Education, admitted that he had been faking it: he actually pretended to understand memos. The confession was prompted by logorrhea in his own department: "This office's activities during the year were primarily continuing their primary functions of education of the people to acquaint them of their needs, problems and alternate problem solutions, in order that they can make wise decisions in planning...
Given the new realities, those statistics could change without notice. The People's Republic may soon be complaining of U.S. neologisms, coinages, and other abuses. Like Americans, the Chinese can take comfort in H.L. Mencken's editorial, as valid today as it was 40 years ago: "As English spreads over the world, will it be able to maintain its present form? Probably not. But why should it? ... Stability in language is synonymous with rigormortis." In 1978, American prose continued to alter, irritate and entertain. To the purist, those characteristics may be evidence of deterioration. Certainly our language...
...three churches is the Nederduits Gereformeerde Kerk, or N.G. Church, which is often sarcastically called "the National Party at prayer." It claims the allegiance of 1.5 million of the nation's 2.5 million Afrikaners, including Prime Minister P.W. Botha and his predecessor John Vorster, now President. English-speaking Protestant and Roman Catholic organizations, both white and black, are quick to criticize government policy, but they have minimal influence on the Afrikaner-dominated regime. When the N.G. Church speaks, however, the government listens...
...wife, he practices Transcendental Meditation, reads a lot, frequently about psychic phenomena, and lives fairly simply. He likes to play tennis and ski with the children. In London he enjoys an occasional evening of blackjack at a casino, and driving fast in a Kermit-green Lotus through the English countryside. Although Jim is away from the family home in Bedford, N.Y.. for almost six months of each year, the Henson marriage seems to be anything but the disposable show business model. Jim and Jane possess powerful internal gyroscopes, which have not importantly changed direction in 20 years...