Lucullan
Sta,-A small point, but since it happened with Stuart Hood the other week, and with Leslie Adrian last week and with myself a few weeks ago in Another Place (printer's error, honestly), I think it's time a public correction be made.
The word is not, as commonly misthought, Lucullan, but Lucullean.
ARTHUR POITERSMAN
33 Redington Road. London. NW 3
[Mr Pottersman is behind the times. It is true that the form Lucullan does not appear in the Oxford English Dictionary, but it has gained ground in the present century and is probably the most commonly used form now. A statement by R. W. Chapman in Tract no. Iii of the Society for Pure English (1939), page 65, is relevant: 'Though Lucullan is not in OED it is in my (1896) Lewis and Short, and I think that every one now says Lucullan banquet.' Mr R. W. Burchfield. the editor of the forthcoming Supplement to the OED, con- siders Lucullan to be 'certainly acceptable' and in- forms us that it will be included in the Supplement and also in due course in the Shorter Oxford.- Editor, SPECTATOR.]
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