>>I've seen a shelf in the local library where it says "international languages", no less. On the shelf there are books in Russian (OK, sort of, as many people of other nations may know the language, but not as their first one), German (really OK, as it's spoken in at least three countries), French (also multiple countries), Latin (zero countries, but still in widespread use), Spanish (lots of countries), Japanese - wait, how many nations speak Japanese? Or Hebrew? And how is English conspicuously absent from this list of international languages? It's the most international language nowadays, spoken in Britain, Ireland, Canada, USA, Australia, New Zealand and at least a dozen former colonies across Africa and Asia. Also missing was Arabic, spoken in a dozen countries.

>Well it's a while since I've looked through a lib-lab but I'm sure the last tiem it was "Foreign Languages" or whatever. Why, in my weekly news digesy magazine it has a page entitled "Best of Foreign Articles". Maybe the US is more touchy about the use of "foreign" in that so many residents ARE from other countries. So in your (pedantic - let's face it <s>

Just slightly disgusted at the destruction of a word, in a language which lacks so many of them :).

>) case you'd be just as likely to bloody0mindedly look in "American Authors" as "foreign" (to you) :-)

If Britain stays in cahoots with the USA, you may wake up with Foreign Office named again.