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[Song&Dance]

ENGLISH TODAY, Cambridge University Press has passed on.

Tom Mac Arthur, the 20 year veteran editor has retired. Tom was headquartered in Hong Kong, was married to a Chinese and always made room for articles from Hong Kong and mainland China. Tom resisted the pressure from Cambridge University Press to make English Today a peer reviewed journal. He always found room to publish ideas that were new and different and cutting edge, articles that were important but would never be accepted by a peer group. ENGLISH TODAY is one of the few western linguistic journals that can be found in most major/famous Chinese University libraries such as Shanghai Foreign Studies University and Guangzhou Foreign Studies universities. This gave unique access to Chinese students and scholars, access denied foreign teachers by �Chinese Only� academic journals published in China.

The new editorial board (note that it took three editors to replace Tom) have made English Today a peer reviewed journal. None of the new editors have any direct or indirect link to China.

The real ENGLISH TODAY that Tom built has died and in its place is just another ordinary peer reviewed journal, just what we did not need.

Another credible source of non-mainstream ideas has died. We should all lament this passing.

Tom and I discussed the volume of articles coming out of China and the need for a new journal ENGLISH TODAY IN CHINA. Cambridge University Press was not interested.

A New York publisher was interested but they could not find their Tom MacArthur.