23 JANUARY 1948, Page 5

Adjured to insist that Olympiad does not mean Olympian Games,

I readily comply. Even The Times, it appears, has spoken of the King opening the fourteenth Olympiad. An Olympiad was (and nothing has happened to give it any other signification) a measure- ment of time—the four-year period between each series of Olympic

Games. (The fourteenth Olympiad occurred round about 72o Lc.)