11 APRIL 1947, Page 5

I have before me a number of selected words and

phrases offered for my execration. About one or two of them—" face up to," "check up on," "directive," I am bound to give intellectual assent to the demand for condemnation, though without great emotional bitterness about them. But one i definitely decline to execrate. "Surely the palm goes" (I am asked to agree) "to 'a sighted spouse,' as indicating the husband or wife, possessing normal sight, of a blind person." All right, but what else are you to say? Is there any single word except " slighted " which conveys the meaning, "not blind"? Is there any single word except " spouse " which serves for a married person of either sex equally? "Sighted spouse" does, I admit, look at first glance like particularly bad officialism. But there it is till someone can offer an alternative equally expressive.