Sir, - One of your correspondents impressed me some weeks ago when she expressed her gratitude to you for confronting her with a previously unencountered word. She had looked it up in her dictionary and was glad to be able to add it to her vocabulary.
I thought I would follow her example when I saw a new word in John Waters's column (November 4th) describing our esteemed former President as a "talisperson" for certain people. But no such word was to be found.
Not only is Mr Waters disrespectful to a woperson of substance, but he has succumbed so far to the modern personia for extirpating "man" and "men" from the English language that he despersonds their replacepersonst in even the most sexless of words.
Surely the personagepersonst of The Irish Times has not given him a persondate to persongle the language in this inhuperson personner? So are these epersonations entirely his own perforpersonce? Can you not compersond him to desist from all personifestations of conforpersonce to such a disreputable fashion? - Yours, etc.,
Frank Farrell,
Lakelands Close, Stillorgan, Co Dublin.