Tom McArthur's English Today

Abstract

As English Today notches up a century, it's high time to acknowledge Tom McArthur's inimitable contribution to the study of English worldwide.

Tom McArthur's contribution to English language studies has been immense, and has had a powerful impact at a number of levels. Tom started his life as an educator, gaining crucial exposure to English across the globe very early in his career, when in one of his first jobs teaching English at the Cathedral School in Bombay (Mumbai). After a varied academic career, which included a post at the University of Quebec, Tom returned to the UK to start a new journal for Cambridge University Press, English Today. Tom's brief at that time was to be the founding editor of a journal that would inform a wide readership about the highways and byways of the English language, during an era when English was becoming a global language at an unprecedented speed.