“If you want to know what a soldier’s life was really like in the Forties, pick up a dictionary of Services slang. Most of the words have nothing to do with fighting: they’re to do with gossiping, making tea, and waiting around.” And among the 3,000 new words in the latest edition of the Modern Chinese Dictionary are “fengkoufei (a bribe paid to a journalist to keep his mouth shut), Baijin Zhuyi (money worshipper) and fenqing (angry young nationalist).”