23 MARCH 1996, Page 29

Language barrier

Sir: Both 'Portrait of the week' (9 March) and Time magazine (18 March) reported the death of the members of a popular Brazilian rock group when their plane crashed into a hill near Sao Paulo earlier this month.

Whereas Time magazine correctly trans- lated the group's name from the Portuguese Namonas Assassinas' to a palatable English 'Killer Mammaries', your journal offers a rather tepid Namonas Assassins'.

No doubt sloppiness was the culprit and not, I sincerely hope, the more serious shortcoming: monoglot arrogance.

Rick Gambetta

Rua Padre Carvalho 68, Apartment 123, Pinheiros, Sao Paulo, Brazil