A well-known British broadcaster and biographer of the Royal Family writes as President of the Queen's English Society about the need to defend the mother tongue in the mother country.

In England and Wales, the debate on the English curriculum, between the concerned public and Her Majesty's Inspectors, moves into a second phase that is likely to be as controversial as the first.

The language of bureaucracy often intimidates, and is particularly intimidating for such people as immigrants in Britain and ordinary people in countries where English is the first language of officialdom.

Received Pronunciation or BBC English has long been the prestige voice of British English and the model offered to foreigners learning the language. In recent years, however, RP has been in retreat, and a former professor of English – of Danish background – presents the case for protecting and preserving it.

In ET6, we reported that English may be superseding Latin as the language through which the Vatican talks to the world. To find out how it fares in one of the world's younger religions, English Today talks to IAN SEMPLE, at the World Centre of the Baha'i Faith in Haifa, Israel.

Et talks to Maureen Stack, editor of a sister periodical with a worldwide clientele.

A wide range of newsletters, clippings and cuttings, catalogues and correspondence arrives (and is welcomed) on ET's editorial desk. From the mass that goes into our files TOM MCARTHUR has sorted out a mélange of missing apostrophes, new model words, foreignisms, media usages and neologisms that – somehow or other – come within ET's brief.

The editor of a quarterly devoted to the analysis and exposure of doublespeak describes some prize specimens and how his organization counters them.

A wide range of newsletters, clippings and cuttings, catalogues and correspondence arrives (and is welcomed) on ET's editorial desk. From the mass that goes into our files TOM McARTHUR has sorted out a mélange of malapropisms, foreignisms, neologisms, fake languages and odd usages that – somehow or other – come within ET's brief.

Variants of Norse were at one time spoken in many parts of Britain and Ireland, their last remnants being the Norn of the Northern Isles. How well has that language fared in Orkney, and how has it blended with English?