14 FEBRUARY 1998, Page 23

Mother knew best

Sir: Frank Johnson (Shared opinion, 7 February) claims to be baffled by the phrase 'She's no better than she ought to be.' If, as he says, his own mother was not troubled by speculation about it, might it not be because she understood perfectly that it meant, 'She ought to be better than she is'? As a matter of fact, there is a com- mon variant, 'She's no better than she should be,' which by the same token means, `She should be better than she is.'

Incidentally, since such phrases seem to be used exclusively of women, does not this blatant imbalance call for some form of protest by feminists?

Peter Rickard

Emmanuel College, Cambridge