Ffion's fish-knives
Sir: Miss Jenkins is quite right to include fish-knives on her wedding list (Leader, 6 December). They are perfectly acceptable nowadays and widely used by all classes. When did anyone last see someone pulling fish apart with two forks?
With houses now so small, we are forced to use the well-named living-room. Few of us have a `withdrawing-room', as it was originally called. 'Lounge' is still for hotels, airports and pubs, though it would be hard to find a `lounge-bar' in a modern themed pub.
Sofa, of course. Everyone knows that a couch is only for potatoes, and otherwise only to be found in casting-directors' and psychoanalysts' rooms.
Wireless/radio, gramophone/stereo is purely a matter of generation gap. We wire- less and gramophone fans will soon be no more, but Frank Johnson will soon find himself old hat with 'radio'. Transistors took over a long time ago.
Lavatory/toilet is still a great dividing line. It should always be lavatory or lay., and in public places WC or cloakroom. The worst public notice in London is the one in Harrods that proclaims in large letters, 'Luxury Toilets'. Apart from the ghastliness of the juxtaposition of those two words, it is not true. Compared with the 'Cloakrooms' off the old children's wear department they are a complete misnomer.
Instead of making schoolboy jokes about fish-knives, backs and conferences, why not wish Miss Jenkins and Mr Hague much joy and happiness?
Pamela Taylor
Foresters, Portesbery Road, Camberley, Surrey
Previous page
