7 MAY 1927, Page 18

FAMILIAR MISQUOTATIONS

[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]

Sin,—The misquoted phrase I come across far more frequently than any other is " In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread." " Face " always becomes " brow." This substitu- tion actually occurs in the Report of the Archbishop's Com- mittee on Christianity and Industrial Problems in 1918, of which four bishops, a dean, and three other clergymen, including the secretary, were members. I believe that the begetter of this popular error was Rogue Riderhood, the honest tradesman who got his living, you may remember, by the sweat of his brow. But I think an Archbishops' Committee might have preferred the biblical word to Rogue Riderhood's revised