2 NOVEMBER 1974, Page 5

Word-lore

Sir: I was abroad when Richard Baker's review of my Concert Song Companion was published in your issue of September 28, so I hope you will allow this belated comment. I am extremely grateful to Mr. Baker for so sympathetic a notice, but he says in his last two sentences that he cannot find the word "sheerly" in his Concise Oxford Dictionary and hopes that it is in the big one. It is indeed in the big one, with three sets of meanings. The synonyms given include "completely, entirely, wholly, thoroughly, purely, simply". Several excellent examples of its use are quoted from 1601 onwards.

Charles Osborne The Arts Council of Great Britain, 105 Piccadilly, London, WI