16 MARCH 1996, Page 23

To Dot

Sir: A column entitled 'Mind Your Lan- guage' is an obvious target for pedantic comment.

Might I therefore remind Dot Wordsworth that Omnibus (`for all') is a dative not an ablative plural, even though both cases have the same form (Mind your language, 9 March).

Latin for Today showed the traps into which the scholar could easily fall:

What is this that roareth thus, Can it be an omnibus?

Hark the hideous noise and hum Indicat Motorem BUM

Douglas Barker

Purton House, Nr Swindon, Wiltshire