17 SEPTEMBER 1948, Page 20

PASSIVE RESISTANCE SIR, —Since the truth about English grammar has been

revealed to Miss Agnes Fry by those two beneficent goddesses, Parsing and Translation, she is no doubt not interested in such a humdrum process as giving a coherent account of the way in which educated Englishmen actually use their language. Others may be interested to be given a reference to chapter 12 of Jespersen's Essentials of English Grammar, where there is a brief but useful discussion of the idiom in question.—Your faithfully,