Modern Manglish

‘It’s dog eat dog in this rat race.’ ‘We’ll burn that bridge when we come to it.’ ‘I hope to come first or second, or at least to win it.’ The information superhighway brings more text to our door than ever before. It’s just that most of it gets mangled along the way. Twenty years ago, Harold Scruby’s Manglish became an instant bestseller. This version expands on the consummate mangles of the original, with all-new Scrubyisms and recent classics from the shame files of the Plain English Foundation. Modern Manglish explores the traditional linguistic traps of mixed metaphors and mispronunciation, new words and old clichés, and euphemisms, tautologies, and jargon. It also exposes the latest Manglish in serially offending professions such as politics, business, and the law. When exactly did we all become ‘stakeholders seeking to leverage our paradigms to achieve best-practice scenarios moving forward’? Alongside these are the newest contenders for the Manglish crown, ranging from sports talk to silly signs, and from food speak to fancy-pants job titles. For your delectation — and perhaps chagrin — here are the worst excesses of Manglish, illustrated by Australia’s premier editorial cartoonist, Alan Moir.

For people nowadays, the constant exchange of people, goods and ideas and their interaction across wide distances are a part of everyday life. However, such encounters and interregional links are by no means only a recent phenomenon, although the forms they have taken in the course of history have varied. It goes without saying that travel to distant regions was spurred by various interests, first and foremost economic and imperialist policies, which reached an initial climax around 1500 with the European expansion to the Americas and into the Indian Ocean. The motivations of European travellers for venturing to the regions of maritime and mainland Southeast Asia, which are the focus of the studies presented here, were manifold, ranging from the pursuit of power, commercial exploitation, intellectual curiosity and the aspiration to proselytize among indigenous people. This book adds to existing knowledge on travel, travel experiences and travel writing by Europeans in mainland and insular Southeast Asia from the 16th to the 21st century, based on specific case studies. Moreover, it demonstrates how Europeans perceived religion in the region presently known as Southeast Asia. Working on the assumption that many of the European traders, seafarers, explorers and administrators arriving in Southeast Asia came as Christians, convinced of the superiority of their religion, the contributors to this volume analyse their encounters with Muslims, who had been their long-standing enemies in the Mediterranean, and with Hindus, Buddhists, and adherents of local religions. They involve themselves closely with the travelogues and the role of religions therein, and, in doing so, reveal the ways in which religion influenced the travellers’ understanding of societies in maritime and mainland Southeast Asia. The volume explores a number of questions, including: How did European travellers perceive religion in different regions of Southeast Asia in different historical periods? How did the administrators, the missionaries, the natural historians and the explorers position themselves vis-à-vis Islam and Buddhism on Java and in Siam? And what do travel accounts tell us about the way Southeast Asian people perceived the Europeans?

English in the World: History, Diversity, Change examines the English language as it has developed through history and is used across the globe today. The first half of the book outlines the history of the language from its fifth-century roots through its development as a national, a colonial, and now a global language. In the second half, the focus shifts to the diversity of the language today. The book explores varieties of English across the English-speaking world, as well as English-related varieties such as pidgins and creoles. It also examines complex processes of variation, hybridity and change in English, and in the shifting styles of individual speakers. Throughout, the focus is on the international nature of English and its use alongside other languages in a diverse range of communities. Drawing on the latest research and The Open University’s wide experience of writing accessible and innovative texts, this book: explains basic concepts and assumes no previous study of English or linguistics contains a range of source material and commissioned readings to supplement chapters includes contributions from leading experts in their fields including Joan Beal, Suresh Canagarajah, David Crystal, Jonathan Hope, Kay McCormick, Miriam Meyerhoff, Rajend Mesthrie, Robert Podesva and Jennifer Smith has a truly international scope, encompassing examples and case studies from the UK and North America, Australia and New Zealand, Europe, Asia, and Africa is illustrated in full colour to bring the fascinating study of the English language alive includes a comprehensive index as well as useful appendices showing the historical timeline of English and a brief introduction to the description of linguistic features English in the World: History, Diversity, Change is essential reading for all students of English language studies.

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