Editorial

Taboo words
Kate Burridge and Keith Allan

Tabooed expressions include sexual and scatological obscenities, ethnic slurs, insults, name-calling, profanity, blasphemy, slang, jargon, vulgarities of all kinds, even the forbidden words of non-standard grammar.

Taking the mickey
Jessica Milner Davis

Humour can be dangerous, as well as entertaining. Its retaliative effects ensure that joking provides a satisfying and effective (but not always gentle) way of taking another individual or group down a peg or two.

Banishment
Resting Place
Silence
Bei Ling

Talking with Kevin Hart
Shaoyang Zhang

In some ways the experience of writing poems resembles the experience of prayer. In both states there is an extreme attentiveness, an openness to experience that is also a deep calm.

The accidental editor
Rae Luckie

For the participants on our journey to Burma, there was a void—a missing story that each one needed in order to come to terms with their own lives. All said the journey had eased their loss. After living with them through this intense experience, I wanted to make that sense of resolution ‘concrete’.

Indexing now and into the future
Glenda Browne

Although there is one general approach to indexing there are many variations in the way we work depending on our own styles, our clients, the work and the budget.

Word thieves
Paul Bennett

Just as people steal cattle from herds, people steal words from English, and if somebody tells me that I have no right to stand in the way of a changing language, I reply that they have no right to steal words of which I am a part owner.

His Master's Voice
Reviewed by Paula Grunseit

His Master’s Voice, a grim and well-told story without a happy ending, traces a decade of assault on public debate and democracy, the history of Australians’ failure to prevent it and the evolution of the so-called ‘Howard mainstream’.

The Apricot Colonel
Reviewed by Janet Mackenzie

Editors will dream of identifying with the narrator-heroine’s description of their role: ‘An editor is a person of power. Of grandeur. I look at a manuscript and see the scope, the structure. Grand things. This takes vision. Very few people have it.’

Another Word a Day
Reviewed by Sheila Allison

Do you want to hear a good definition of the untranslatable word chutzpah? Anu Garg’s gentle voice, invites the reader to share his fascination with and affection for words.

About the contributors
Editorial Board and Acknowledgements
Guidelines for contributors