THE BOOT AND THE OTHER LEG.
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—In your issue of May 24th Mr. Evelyn Wrench, in comparing the paucity of British news that used to be published by the American Press with the comparative lack of Amerioan news in the British Press nowadays, says, "but to-day the boot is on the other foot." Is not this an instance of the instinct for novelty undermining epigram and obscuring language ? It always seemed to me that "the other leg," the usual expression, was only a short way of saying that the boot (the old torture) was now applied to the leg of the other man ; in other words, that the tables were reversed. If the saying had been concerned with an ordinary boot, would not the now-usurping " foot " probably have been put down from the first ?
As another instance, a leading newspaper the other day suggested that a well-known politician would have to take "his courage in his hands," breaking off the point of the aphorism by omitting " both."—I am, Sir, &c., IoNortAmus.
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