Sir, - It is not true, as Mr Gerald E. Smyth claims (May 15th), that the equivalence of "forgo" and "forego", for example, cannot be challenged if it's in the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary - it is challenged by authorities including Fowler's Modern English Usage, the Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors, the Little Oxford Guide to English Usage and Butcher's Copy-editing.
I stand over, and believe that I can prove, my original point; standards of spelling, grammar and syntax are much lower in The Irish Times than in, say, The Guardian. - Yours, etc., Brendan O'Brien, Proofhouse,
Ballinteer,
Dublin 16.