18 MAY 2002, Page 40

Feline favouritism

From Mr Robert Darroch

Sir: Paul Johnson (And another thing, 27 April) missed probably the greatest case of cat bias in the English language. It is to be found in the Pocket Oxford Dictionary, the lexicon of the Empire, whose 1924 and subsequent editions defined the words 'cat', 'dog' and 'mouse' in terms only a card-carrying cat-lover (clearly one of the Fowler brothers) could have written.

Robert Darroch

Sydney, Australia