27 MARCH 1993, Page 27

A nicety of the cloth

Sir: Although a modern clergyman is prob- ably capable of almost any verbal solecism, I am sure that the Edwardian-looking cleric in Castro's cartoon (13 March) would never have said that he had been 'defrocked'. There is, or at any rate was, no such word. The English word is 'unfrocked'. Perhaps a word from Dot Wordsworth would be in order.

The Revd John Fellows

The Rectory, Compton, Guildford, Surrey