Ober the top
From Mr Patrick Skene Catling Sir: The Europeanisation of these north- westerly offshore island proceeds apace. A symptom now endemic is the German pre- fix fiber-, as. in that ideal of Nietzsche and Goebbels, Ubermensch.
Journalists are using fiber- as a reinforce- ment where, until recently, hyper- (as in hyper-rich) and serious (serious money) seemed sufficiently emphatic. Perhaps it is fiber's umlaut that charms writers who aspire to state-of-the-art cosmopolitanism. The Irish Times's new Saturday supplement last weekend called attention to Wallpaper, 'the fiber-trendy magazine'. And even The Spec- tator, in its leading article (11 November) of otherwise characteristic probity, 'Tony the Lonely', coined the phrase `fiber-yuppie'. Please, henceforth, be more careful.
Patrick Skene Catling
Ahakista, County Cork, Eire
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