12 MAY 1967, Page 24

In defence of English

Sir: May I congratulate Mr Playfair on his article (28 April)? But why does he not mention the ugliest, most irritating and most prevalent of modern cockneyisms, namely the tacking-on of an `s' to every word that ends in 'a' and is followed by a word beginning in a vowel? In broadcasts and elsewhere it is nearly always 'Asia-r-and Africa,' `China-r-and Russia,"India-r-is' and so forth. Even the word 'law,' followed by a vowel, is often con- verted into lor.' It was so pronounced, for example, in The Right Honourable Gentleman by most of the principal actors. By living in France and being an Irishman and an octogenarian I resist this in- fection, but it seems to have swept through England like a cholera epidemic.