30 SEPTEMBER 1949, Page 4

There has been a good deal of needless mystery as

to the word that has caused so much controversy about a recent B.B.C. broadcast. There is no need to make any bones about it. The word was bugger. It is a beastly word. It is quite unnecessary to use it in a translation from Plautus or anywhere else. The B.B.C. has, in my judgement, done a great disservice to decency by suggesting that this is the kind of language it is quite natural for listeners to have offered to them, and the decision to delete it from the recording is belated. JANUS.