15 OCTOBER 1994, Page 28

Breast-groper

Sir: Phillip Hodson (Letters, 1 October) still seems to be groping around in the dark. The point, or rather points, at issue were not the singularity, duality or plurality of the appendages in question. The point is the singularity or duality of reference of the term 'bosom'. I quote Webster's Third New International Dictionary: `either or both of the breasts'. Interestingly enough, the ety- mology of the word derives from the San- skrit bhuri, meaning `abundance'. Might this not suggest the disappearance at some point in our evolutionary past of the super- numeraries to which Mr Hodson refers?

John D. Cochrane

Robert-Mayer-Strasse 54, 60486 Frankfurt, Germany