Shanghai was one of the most polyglot cities in the world, a vast metropolis governed by the British and French but otherwise an American zone of influence.
Everywhere you went in Paris during the revolt in Tunisia, portable televisions blared at top volume in shops, takeaways and cafes, broadcasting a polyglot, polyphonic babble from Al Jazeera, Al Arabiya and the French-speaking channels from the Maghreb.
And the editorial perspective of the polyglot and remorselessly internationally minded World Service helps the more intelligent end of BBC journalism to steel itself against the temptations of celebrity rubbish.
That accolade belongs instead to the shadowy figure of Kathrin Muehlbronner, a polyglot economics graduate of the university of Tübingen who, it is tempting to say, may exert more reactionary influence over Spanish life than any woman since Queen Isabella drove out the Moors, expelled the Jews and put the Inquisition at the centre of the nation more than half a millennium ago.
Tim Doner, an American teenage polyglot (see The Economist's multilingual video interview with him here) is much the same.
"English is unmatched in its acronyms, such as DoD for department of defence," says Mohammed al-Basha, a spokesman for the Yemeni government, who tweets in English and Arabic.Twitter's growth around the world has reduced the proportion of total global tweets in English to 39% from two-thirds in 2009, but polyglot tweeters still often favour the language because of its ubiquity.
Through it all, her father baffled his persecutors, who could not believe that the suave, stylish polyglot was just what he claimed to be: a hard-living, hard-playing newsman.
THE Economist building in London is a polyglot place.
The other side's spin-doctors are liberal-minded, polyglot and accommodating.
The polyglot touch is intended to recognise the diverse origins of the Jewish people killed by the Nazis.
An urbane, polyglot ex-spy, he is trying to speed up reform and improve the forces' abysmal public image.
