English war of words

One of the English media's missions is to help Chinese readers learn current, Standard English. Unfortunately, readers of Beijing's English media are presented daily with outmoded words that could have been heard in 19th-century Britain or colonial India.

"Bourse," "whingers," "thrice": Each of these quaint words have been printed in one such publication recently although none of them are used in America, the country that sets the standard for English. American English is the type that people who don't speak English want to learn.

If you don't believe that, you haven't seen the book Speak like Barack Obama, which prints the American president's speeches in Chinese and English. There are no books called Speak like Gordon Brown or Speak like Manmohan Singh. This state of affairs bothers some working for China's English media who are waging a guerilla war against the language recognized worldwide as the global lingua franca - American English.