13 MAY 1955, page 13

Red Tape (star-spangled)

W HEN I first took the shoes from off my feet to enter the holy places of Washington, they were sad and empty faces. It was 1931. and many of the marble halls had been built as......

Absence-proneness

T HE word 'prone' used to mean 'lying face downwards,' just as 'supine! meant `lying face upwards.' (Why is there no similarly concise Latin-based word for the sideways or......