3 FEBRUARY 1967, Page 14

Side Effect

SIR,—You ask in your Notebook (January 27) if there is 'any other cliché that is so consistently used today to signify the very reverse of what it should mean.' Surely the prime example of that is the confusion of Highest Common Factor with Lowest Common Multiple—and while we're on the subject, light year is a measure of distance not time.

ALISTAIR GIBB Grange Road, Elie, Fife, Scotland