12 DECEMBER 1931, Page 20

THE "SPECTATOR" AND THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE [To the Editor of

the SPECTATOR.] SIR,--Your editorial footnote to my letter, which you were good enough to publish in your issue of the 5th inst., was " Colonel Storr is against us : the Oxford Dictionary is with us. We carry on."

The appeal, then, is to Caesar ; to Caesar I go. I find, on consulting the Oxford Dictionary, that where centre is used as a verb, in sixteen of the instances cited in the Dictionary in is shown in conjunction with it, on or upon in eight instances, and round or around in only one, viz., in a quotation from Freeman's Norman Conquest. Vox clarnantis . . . or Athan- asius contra . . . ?—I am, Sir, &c., bloody," possibly, " but unbowed." LANCELOT STORK (Lieut.-Col.). . Union Club, Carlton house Terrace, S. W. 1.

[Colonel Storr is against us.. Freeman is with us. We still carry on.—En. Spectator.]