22 OCTOBER 1983, Page 20

Outage is in

Sir: It is right that any neologism should have to run the gauntlet of anything from scholarly criticism to popular ridicule. 'Outage' deserves no mercy and I can see nothing to commend it. Yet when you state (Notebook, 15 October) that, 'It does not appear in the Oxford dictionary,' you shift from legitimate derision to propounding an error of fact. The OED 1933 Supplement records this word and defines it as, 'The amount or proportion of (electric) lamps or bulbs that go out or cease to supply light'. A power cut indeed.

Ivor Jones

103, Waddington Street, Norwich, Norfolk