23 MAY 1914, Page 18

[To elm Emma or THE ^Sermaror.."11 SIR,—I suppose a "

howler " may be perpetrated in spelling as well as in speech. If so, one has lately come to me from a boy who, baying in a dictation lesson to write the word "wife," spelt it "yf." Though he made the word singular, he was not quite so himself, for, had he known it, be might have quoted the authority of Huxley, who, writing of the Saturday-to- Monday outings of the members of the X Club when they took their wives with them, called them the excursions of (xs +yvs). —1 am, Sir, lee.,