12 OCTOBER 1951, Page 4

Having got involved once more in the old " Thumbs

up," " Thumbs down," controversy, let me invoke authority in favour of accuracy. The term comes, of course, from the. Roman arena. " Thumbs down," I have always understood, meant " drop your sword " and spare the defeated gladiator ; " thumbs up " signified " drive your sword up into his throat." However that may be, popular usage, as the Oxford Dictionary demon- strates, has precisely reversed the meaning of the terms. It quotes (among other authorities) the classical scholar R. Y. Tyrrell as follows: " Thumbs down ' means spare him ' . . . the signal for death was thumbs up.' " Current gestures will need revision.