Iqbal A. Ansari’s book Uses of English, for the conservative, carries an explanatory sub-title ‘Varieties of English and Their Uses’. Conscious of some eyebrows being raised on the plural ‘Uses’ and afraid that the sub-title may not register, the author begins his preface with the following explication: ‘This book is as its subtitle suggests, about some varieties of English and their uses. I was rather diffident in giving it the title Uses of English in view of the fact that Professor Randolph Quirk’s book (London: Long mans, 1961) is entitled The Use of English. But there are uses and uses; and moreover uses is not the same as the use’. The first chapter entitled ‘Englishes’ (the plural again) is an obvious corollary to this position. Pointing out that varieties of English, and for that matter of a living language, can stem from various factors, for example, from regional variations, the author chooses to highlight the varieties due to the domain of usage.
The domain of usage has a large variety: science and technology, law, administration, commerce and so on. The English used in a particular domain is, then, given a name after it: technical English, legal English, administrative English, commercial English, and so on.