2 FEBRUARY 1968, Page 27

Fish 'n' chips

Sir: It appears from Sir Denis Brogan's 'Table Talk,' in your issue of 26 January, that not even a Scot who has been thoroughly corrupted by an English education has the faintest idea of the difference between 'shall' and `will'! The point of the anti-Scottish joke is that the drowning Scots- man is alleged to have cried : 'I will drown, no- body shall save me!' As told by Sir Denis Brogan

shall . . nobody will . . .'—the drowning man's cri de coeur makes perfectly good sense—in English!

T. V. Scrivenor Farnham House, Farnham Royal, Bucks.