The Long Result'
SIR,-1 seldom comment on notices of my own books, but in his review of The Long Result Vernon Scannell makes a point which I think will not bear close examination. In regard to science fiction generally he complains that the rhythm and idioms of its speech are twentieth-century.
Well . . . the year 2465 is just about as far from us as is, say, Wyclif's translation of the Bible, and with the growing influence of American-English, Indian-English, Asian and Pacific pidgin and many other regional dialects our language is quite likely to become unrecognisable in the next five centuries. Many people found even the comparatively short- term projections of Anthony Burgess in A Clock- work Orange impossible to digest; his technique there must represent the effective limit for extra- polated English.
Faute de mieux, therefore, one must rely on the truism that contemporary speech always sounds contemporary to the speaker. Slang phrases of to- day may become respectable tomorrow, but the day after they will be archaic—none the less, there will continue to be slang. Similarly, affectation, pomposity and other personal speech-habits will find their parallels no matter how the language evolves.
JOHN BRUNNER 17d Frognal, London, NW3
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