14 JUNE 2008, Page 26

A brutish term

Sir: I cannot be the only reader to be dismayed by the tone all too frequently struck by some of your male contributors. The latest example came in Theodore Dalrymple’s rant (Global warning, 7 June). He writes of ‘shivering, drunken, scantily clad sluts... ’. No doubt these young women do not represent the flower of English womanhood — but ‘sluts’? The coarse aggressiveness of the term, unimaginable from the pens of Paul Johnson or Charles Moore, says, I suggest, more about the brutishness of Theodore Dalrymple than about the character of these misguided young people.

I do hope you agree.

Ruth Chambers

Durham