WRITING
Sm,—I read with interest the review of my book•on Writing by Hugh Gordon Porteus June 8), and am grateful for his constructive suggestions. But I am rather puzzled by some 'of his remarks. He writes, '. . . the information given is not so much inaccurate as (often) seriously misleading or (some- times) scarcely intelligible. For example: "In its earliest form, cuneiform writing was not cunei- form."' This incomplete quotation is 'seriously mis- leading' and perhaps 'scarcely intelligible.' Indeed, the passage in my book reads: 'In its earliest form, then, cuneiform writing was no cuneiform (that is, "wedge-shaped") at all but a kind of picture-writing, with the cumbersomeness which pictography always implies, etc.' Your readers are sufficiently intelligent to understand what is meant.
The reviewer also complains that I call the Chinese' 'script "transitional," as if it might evolve into an alphabet,' but on pp. 23-24 I explain that 'For lack of a better form, these forms of writing have been labelled "transitional," in that they stand somewhere between pure ideographic and pure phonetic writing. It should be remembered, however, that some of these systems of writing lasted for three thousand years or more, and that they can be regarded as "transitional" only within the broadest of historical perspectives.' Again, your reviewer's omission is 'seriously misleading.'
Even if Hugh Gordon Porteus disagrees with my premises and my conclusions, he may agree that there is hardly an author who is not '(often) seriously misleading or (sometimes) scarcely intelli- gible.' He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her,' says the Bible (St. John viii, 7).
Alphabet Museum and Seminar, 50 St. Barnabas Road, Cambridge
DAVID DIRINGER
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