Do you think it is a good idea ...

[Tender Branson]

During high school all students in my English class chose voluntarily to subscribe to NEWSWEEK for 2 years, even though it wasn't really needed. But it worked out well, and my good English is the result of it.

But recently I read a few editions of the Economist and it looks to be more detailed and informative for today's issues.

Problem is, if you buy it in the supermarket here - the price of 1 issue is 5.80€ (7.80$) !!!

Therefore I consider subscribing for 1 year - the price would only by 128€.

The student offer would be just 105€ - which would be just 2€ per issue.

What do you think ? Anyone of you subscribing to a news magazine and what do you think is best ?

[tpfkaw]

The Economist would be good if you wanted to be convinced of your own rectitude, start every sentence with SIR --, and laugh at all your own jokes.  And be a CIA front.*

*I'm not joking.

[Bacon King]

The Economist is great; I've had a subscription for years.

The Economist would be good if you wanted to be convinced of your own rectitude, start every sentence with SIR --, and laugh at all your own jokes.  And be a CIA front.*

*I'm not joking.

The fact that they bought out a company that gave fake press passes to a half-dozen CIA agents over fifty years ago doesn't quite make them a front for the CIA, lol

[Хahar 🤔]

The Economist is nice, although I find that I disagree with most of what it says. Time and Newsweek are much more American, which goes without saying, and much more mass-market, in that they cover things like television and sports.

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

The only thing I ever subscribed to was Catholicism and I cancelled that 15 years ago.

[phk]

The Economist is a more serious magazine. Xahar is spot-on.

[Tender Branson]

Regarding the "Student Subscriptions":

How do they check if you are a student ?

You only have to fill in:

* Your place of study/teaching
* Your course name

and you'll get it 23€ cheaper.

[Hash]

They seem to hate Basques and love Spanish centralism, so they're evil idiots.

[memphis]

The Economist takes itself very seriously. So expect that. It's also a huge time investment. So expect that too. Be prepared for a few hours a week if you really want to read it. Maybe more if your English isn't 100% fluent And it leans right in a snooty sort of way. It's not a bad choice if your primary interest is to refine your English skills while reading about the world. The writing is superior to just about any other magaznie around. Just don't let the editorial content in it turn you into another Gustaf

[courts]

http://www.theonion.com/video/time-announces-new-version-of-magazine-aimed-at-ad,17950/

[Bacon King]

Regarding the "Student Subscriptions":

How do they check if you are a student ?

You only have to fill in:

* Your place of study/teaching
* Your course name

and you'll get it 23€ cheaper.

IIRC, to get the discount, I just had to give them my student email.

[minionofmidas]

If you must have one of those three? Clearly the first unless all you're looking for is toilet paper.

[The Mikado]

The Economist is worlds superior to the other two, but its style guide is so formal and set in an early-twentieth century form of English that I wouldn't recommend emulating their writing style.  They and The New Yorker are the only publications I'm aware of that still use æ, œ, and diaeresis marks in English.  As long as you understand that no ordinary person would spell "cooperate" "coöperate," go for it.

[Tender Branson]

The Economist is worlds superior to the other two, but its style guide is so formal and set in an early-twentieth century form of English that I wouldn't recommend emulating their writing style.  They and The New Yorker are the only publications I'm aware of that still use æ, œ, and diaeresis marks in English.  As long as you understand that no ordinary person would spell "cooperate" "coöperate," go for it.

You mean they write "Gerhard Schroeder" instead of "Gerhard Schröder" or "Wolfgang Schuessel" instead of "Wolfgang Schüssel" ?

That's OK for me.

[Torie]

The Economist is far superior and you will actually learn something from reading it, and yes, I like its more old fashioned formal style of English prose. Time and Newsweek have declined rather drastically in quality over the decades, just like the WSJ editorial page has since the sad departure of Vermont Royster about 40 years ago. Back then the editorials actually argued a point of view adducing facts and so forth, all elegantly written. I miss those days.

[minionofmidas]

The Economist is worlds superior to the other two, but its style guide is so formal and set in an early-twentieth century form of English that I wouldn't recommend emulating their writing style.  They and The New Yorker are the only publications I'm aware of that still use æ, œ, and diaeresis marks in English.  As long as you understand that no ordinary person would spell "cooperate" "coöperate," go for it.

You mean they write "Gerhard Schroeder" instead of "Gerhard Schröder" or "Wolfgang Schuessel" instead of "Wolfgang Schüssel" ?

That's OK for me.

God, no. They speak Cosmopolitan, not Bad English.

"On words now accepted as English, use accents only when they make a crucial difference to pronunciation: cliché, soupçon, façade, café, communiqué, exposé (but chateau, decor, elite, feted, naive).

If you use one accent (except the tilde—strictly, a diacritical sign), use all: émigré, mêlée, protégé, résumé.

Put the accents and cedillas on French names and words, umlauts on German ones, accents and tildes on Spanish ones, and accents, cedillas and tildes on Portuguese ones: Françoise de Panafieu, Wolfgang Schäuble, Federico Peña. Leave the accents off other foreign names.

Any foreign word in italics should, however, be given its proper accents."

I also like this part:

"Use British English rather than American English or any other kind. Sometimes, however, this injunction will clash with the rule that people and companies should be called what they want to be called, short of festooning themselves with titles. If it does, adopt American (or Canadian or other local) spelling when it is used in the name of an American (etc) company or private organisation (Alcan Aluminum, Pulverizing Services Inc, Travelers Insurance), but not when it is used for a place or government institution (Pearl Harbour, Department of Defence, Department of Labour). The principle behind this ruling is that placenames are habitually changed from foreign languages into English: Deutschland becomes Germany, München Munich, Torino Turin, etc. And to respect the local spelling of government institutions would present difficulties: a sentence containing both the (...)  Defense Department and the need for a strong defence, would look unduly odd. That oddity will arise nonetheless if you have to explain that Rockefeller Center Properties is in charge of Rockefeller Centre, but with luck that will not happen too often.

The Australian Labor Party should be spelt without a u not only because it is not a government institution but also because the Australians spell it that way even though they spell labour as the British do."

[The Mikado]

Tender, with regards to the diaresis marks, I was referring to the (now archaic) English practice that if you have the same vowel twice in a row in a word as part of two different syllables, you put the dots over them.  No one has seriously done that since the late-19th or early-20th century outside of certain publications like The Economist, publications that desire to be the preëminent authority on the English language . 

[Oakvale]

The Economist is fairly good, and certainly the only one of those worth reading. It's also lovably pompous in some of its quirks, as Mikado's pointed out.