A report on how Oxford and Cambridge have prepared a Bible for the end of the 20th century.

A co-editor of the revised and integrated ‘Oxford English Dictionary’ describes his work during the last five years.

A consideration of language as an index of oppression in the United Kingdom

A response to comments recently made by grammarians in ‘English Today’.

In the last issue, an editor of the new OED described his work. Here, an observer looks in on the OED2e being prepared.

The passive voice may not currently be popular with advisers on how to write, but that does not necessarily make it a vice.

In ET17, Tony Fairman claimed that some descriptive grammarians are becoming prescriptive and that they risk presenting ‘Standard English’ as if it were all of English or at least the only English that matters. ET asked four professional grammarians to respond to his observations. Sidney Greenbaum and John Sinclair were specifically named by Tony Fairman.

We provide below excerpts from some of the early reviews of OED2e. The gamut of responses is as wide as the range of the dictionary itself.

A report on the nature and teething troubles of software packages that advise on writing skills.

According to Bill Palmer, who edits and circulates the quarterly newsletter Word Watching (P.O. Box 386, Station Westmount, Montréal, Québec H3Z 2T5, Canada), Tom Swift was a hero in a series of boys' adventure books some years ago. Tom never simply said anything, but ‘said morosely’ and ‘said excitedly’. This adverbial inclination has led to a minor genre of word-play, the Tom Swiftie, as in: ‘I've lost my crutches,’ said Tom lamely.

Do pronunciation keys in dictionaries, especially those designed for children, provide insights into problems of literacy and spelling reform?