21 JANUARY 1949, Page 20

AND/OR OR AND OR OR OR BOTH

Sra,—It was cruel and, I suspect, slightly malicious of your Correspondence Editor to inflict on us last week the above headline—just like that and without the help of punctuation of any kind. Even now I am not sure that I have been able to cope with it. In a spirit of revenge I pass on to him an tmpunctuated specimen which was recently given me by some of my boys, and which may be new, as it was to me, to some of your readers: " Smith where Brown had had had had had had had had had had a better reception by his English master than had had had had." The older one with five consecutive " thats " pales into insignificance by the side of this monster.

On second thoughts, the Christmas spirit not having completely evaporated, I append the punctuated version: "Smith, where Brown had had ' had' had had ' had had' ; ' had' had had a better reception by his English master than `had had' had had."—Yours faithfully,