BRENDAN M. REDMOND,
Sir, - The silly season is well under way and it is a joy to read the letters about the misprints, deliberate or otherwise, in newspapers in the past.
Des Franklin's letter (July 26th) prompted my own recollection of two somewhat similar examples. His reference to the old urn story reminded me of the time I was learning Latin in school. The teacher wrote the following on the blackboard, which he said was inscribed on a lump of stone in a field, around which donkeys were grazing. It read "Foras ses toru bon." As young fellas, it took us a while to get the joke.
In the mid 1950s, a well-known Protestant clergyman died. One of the morning newspapers reported his passing and gave a brief resumé of his life. It concluded by stating that the clergyman left a wife, a sister and two brothels! I hasten to add that it was not in The Irish Times. - Yours, etc.,
BRENDAN M. REDMOND, Hazelbrook Road, Terenure, Dublin 6W.