NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW ON-LINE

A4, 32 page magazine. There are articles, a letter section, and a very interesting crossword. It is a light hearted dip into the language pot, with close consideration of phasiology and metaphor.

As well as its entertainment value, this quarterly is valuable because it offers a deeper look at how we use words. It also introduces some uncommon and interesting words. There is a fine line between new slang, and new words in general, and this quarterly is mindful of this.

I particularly enjoyed the article called PRODUCT NAMES by Mike Warburton:

We had been happily chomping on our Marathon bars, content in the knowledge that they would see us through the 26.2 miles of exertion if necessary. Then all of a sudden, in 1990, Snickers appeared as their cosmopolitan replacement.

We may for the most part accept a doctor's euphemisms and placebos as falling within a permissible degree of deception; indeed, it is from such benign clinical deceit that we get the expression sugarcoated (applied to what would otherwise be a bitter pill to swallow). When is a government with democratic pretensions justified in withholding the truth from its citizens? American English is full of contemptuous references to bureaucratic disinformation and cover stories, official versions and inoperative concepts.

This quarterly is well worth looking at, and should prove popular with writers and English students alike.

A magazine that loves words ancient and modern and attracts articles from USA, Canada and the UK that highlight research and obsessions in a lively, discursive matter. This issue featured failed attempts to get back to the language spoken in Eden, avoidance of mentioning the devil, God and dangerous illnesses, Dutch neologisms and teacherese or how teachers use acronyms and nouns as verbs to give their vocation a professional aurora as well as for baffling students.

Barry Baldwin discusses Jane Austen's linguistic inventions, "I am a honey", "marmalone", "nidgetty", "epigrammatism" and introducing baseball to English literature via NORTHANGER ABBEY. Sharon Queano discusses Ms de Buisseret's DEUX LANGUES, SIX IDIOMS, a discussion of translating into French (universal, neo and Quebec) and English (British, USA and Canadian) and the pitfalls of translating without cultural understanding.

Kathryn Wilkens spent years puzzling over "Etaoin Shrdu" printed on a college yearbook and not finding enlightenment until sighting a linotype machine and reading the first two columns of keys to the

Those are the 12 most common letters in English, so?

There's even a crossword.

VERBATIM is a simply and attractively produced pamphlet-style magazine, consisting of thirty-two cream-coloured A4 pages, printed double-columned in sepia-hued ink. The editing is meticulous and the format is carefully-styled to ensure clarity and variety, while avoiding the twin dangers of monotonous presentation or distracting irrelevant illustration. For example, there are no art-photos, blurry line-drawings, or disruptive type-faces to provide fillers, category divisions, or to mark mood-changes. Instead, the emphasis throughout is upon the magic of words — their history, their capacity for playfulness, their propensity for suffering abuse, and their frequently triumphant role in the arts. With a blend of contributions drawn from an international readership, the mix of styles and perspectives is always surprising, and always enjoyable. There is much here to like, some things to learn from, and a few bits simply to admire.

The long opening article on the Académie Française, by Thora van Male, is fascinating, offering a vivid glimpse of the weird world inhabited by several centuries of the personalities — notable and forgettable — who have constituted this curious institution. Van Male's tone is balanced subtly between factual representation and a faintly discernible amusement by her subject — a perfect mix in this case.

Following this, there is a very interesting article on a phenomenon called Singlish — that is, a unique hybrid language that has arisen in Singapore, moulded out of English and various Asian tongues. The article deals with a variety of Singlish's manifestations, such as text-messaging, and illustrates each topic with clear illustrations.

Madeleine McDonald has contributed a similarly intelligent article on the complexities of language (including its mischievousness and double-sidedness as a communicative tool, concealing as much as it reveals) in one of the most contested of European cultural environments: Alsace. As she describes it,

Bilingualism handed the Alsatians a superb weapon in their quest to preserve their identity and to take revenge, however fleeting, on their oppressors.

In any case, the attitude plainly sponsored by the magazine is a light-hearted one, with often serious and edifying material treated in a manner that neither belittles the importance of the subjects being discussed, nor one which takes itself too seriously. Imagine a group of witty intellectual people whose pastime it is to gather together to share a drink while talking about their own favourite species of verbal extravagance, and you can gain a sense of the magazine's style. It is an informative and altogether pleasurable read, and certain to be a favourite among readers who like to explore the history, the culture and the energy of the words they use.

I love languages and am fascinated by linguistics so was delighted to discover Verbatim — the language quarterly. Although edited in the USA, contributors come from the UK, Canada and Greece, making it international in feel though with a certain bias to North America. This issue is packed full of articles on aspects of linguistics including: euphemisms used in the New York media, words starting with the letter Y, the origin of teddy bear and the DICTIONARY OF ONE LETTER WORDS (a much longer dictionary than one may expect!). The articles were uniformly excellent — thought provoking but accessible and sometimes very funny. I will restrict myself to commenting on a few.

Rob Schliefer's fascinating article ALCHEMICAL CALQUES OR THE TRANSMUTATION OF LANGUAGE looks at calques — words or phrases that are transposed into a different language. He examines the history to words and phrases such as: Milky Way, scapegoat, Superman and addled. It is intriguing to follow words and phrases as they pass from one language to another, sometimes combining with parts of phrases from different source languages.

In THE ETHNOCENTRICITY OF EMAIL, Simon Darragh examines another transmuation of language, outlining how modern written Greek is developing a new written language for international electronic communication, where the Greek alphabet is not easily available. I wonder if the same is happening in Russian?

In an increasingly multicultural society, we are often faced with names we can't pronounce. In I DIDN'T CATCH YOUR NAME, Robert M Rennick outlines some of the difficulties of pronouncing surnames (including some old British surnames that confuse most Americans not to mention many British people!). He throws in a few funny stories on the way.

In the regular column, CLASSICAL BLATHER, Nick Humez lists some of the many words we use for things we can't think of the name of — think of Whatsitsname. Another regular in Verbatim is the fiendishly difficult crossword, which I did not manage to complete!

I thouroughly enjoyed Verbatim and would definitely recommend it to anyone with an interest in where our language comes from and how it continues to evolve.