13 FEBRUARY 1942, Page 4

S.P.C.E.

This corner is becoming a grave responsibility. A critic who defends " reportedly " (not without plausibility, I admit) on the analogy of " confessedly " and " avowedly " protests vigorously against a purism which would stereotype the language and resist its beneficial evolution by the coinage of new words as

called for. As to that, I am no purist ; still less do I claim to be an arbiter of style ; I am content—indeed I desire—to

defer to such authorities as the Oxford English Dictionary and Fowler's English Usage where they apply. But unless it is a complete fallacy to suppose that there is some distinction between good style and bad style, good English and bad English, we may as well foster the good and ban the bad.