I HAD the honour and pleasure of preparing the script for last week’s Edinburgh Festival workshop presentation of scenes from Sir David Lindsay’s Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis. Famously – or notoriously – this is reputedly the first text which openly published, more than 400 years ago, the word you would nowadays print as f***. You adopt the practice of using asterisks in words which other papers spell out, but which you presume would offend your readers if printed in full. You do, however, kindly leave your readers such clear prompts that no-one could doubt the words involved.
This see-through shielding of sensitive souls from common words does lead to the occasional oddity. In a report on Monday’s front page you cite a Cabinet minister’s calling the latest Boris Johnson bourach a "total c*ck-up" ("Burka row Johnson can be a 'great prime minister'", The Herald, August 13). It seems someone at The Herald thinks the term asterisked is a reference to a common term for the male member – in your convention, the p***s. This is mistaken modesty. The metaphor relates to a malfunction of the cocking mechanism of a flintlock gun. The intrusive asterisk’s unnecessary use here leads one to think that a Herald sub-editor might find in another common metaphor related to flintlock guns reference to indecent exposure, causing another "fl*sh in the pan". Perhaps this needlessly bowdlerising cock-up suggests the time has come to re-examine the policy of using asterisks in words that are widely used, and elsewhere freely printed in full.
Professor Ian Brown,
34 Darnley Road, Giffnock.
R RUSSELL Smith (Letters, August 14) had me reaching for Google in an attempt to discern the meaning of "velar fricative". I find that examples in addition to "loch" are "broch" and "saugh". I wonder how many readers like me, who passed Higher English almost seven decades ago, had never heard of the term and either gave up reading Mr Smith's letter or interrupted their reading to learn something new?
I am grateful too, to Mark Boyle (Letters, August 14) r extending my education with his use of the word "klutz".
David Miller,
80 Prestonfield, Milngavie.
THANK you, R Russell Smith.
I was beginning to think that I was the only person alive who knew what a McCallum was.
Rena Robinson,
2 Heritage Court, Greenock.
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