17 FEBRUARY 1996, Page 23

Sir: Your 'French reader', Frederic Di Guisto, is not well

informed — bidet is defined in the 1762 edition of the Diction- naire de ?Academie as (I translate word for word) 'a low oblong basin designed for inti- mate ablutions'. This entry is quoted verba- tim, including the above date, in current French dictionaries.

The object, cheap and lightweight, often with folding legs, could be found in the poorest of houses. It was named by analogy with a bidet: a small horse astride which one sits — a nag — hence its traditional shape, now old fashioned, narrowing at one end. Not a convenient position for washing one's feet.

Cynthia Macdonald

14A Linton Road, Oxford