![]() ![]() ![]() The six member nations of the European Free Trade Association conduct all their business in English, even though not one of them is an English-speaking country. In India, there are more than 3,000 newspapers in English. For the airlines of 157 nations (out of 168 in the world), it is the agreed international language of discourse. For better or worse, English has become the most global of languages, the lingua franca of business, science, education, politics, and pop music. Already Germans talk about ein Image Problem and das Cash-Flow, Italians program their computers with il software, French motorists going away for a weekend break pause for les refueling stops, Poles watch telewizja, Spaniards have a flirt, Austrians eat Big Mäcs, and the Japanese go on a pikunikku. ![]() But if the Briton and American of the twenty-second century baffle each other, it seems altogether likely that they won’t confuse many others-not, at least, if the rest of the world continues expropriating words and phrases at its present rate. ![]()
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