The basic contract would be for English Language eBook rights only (should we be generous and give them worldwide english rights, after all the digital world is not limited by borders).

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Instead, the assimilation of elements of French into English produced Middle English and, with it, the basic profile of the language we still speak: a large vocabulary of Germanic and French-derived words organized with a simplified Germanic grammar.

NEWYORKER: Globish For Beginners

"Basic material wealth is a necessity, " observed Zhou, executive editor of the English-language newspaper, China Daily.

CNN: Feeling blue within China's red-hot economy

Steve Jenner, from the Plain English Campaign, said punctuation, including the apostrophe, was one of the basic rules of language and he described the council's decision as "nonsensical".

BBC: Apostrophe ban on Devon council's new street names