TIIE "SPECTATOR" AND THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Twice in the course of the past few weeks I have found in the Spectator a phrase which has long puzzled me. This phrase I have italicized in the following extract from an article entitled " The Test of Unity " of your issue of October 24th of this year : " Rowdyism . . . it seems . . . to centre mainly round Sir Oswald Mosley." It is in con- nexion with this phrase that I seek enlightenment. How Can anything centre round ? I can imagine something circling round, or centring in or, possibly, on (in the way that one may " concentrate upon "), but centring round somehow does not ring true. Probably the trouble is that my mathematics are out of date.
Perhaps I may add that I once made a collection of instances where this phrase occurred in modern journalism, culling them from leading and other articles in The Times, Morning Post, Manchester Guardian, Westminster Gazette, and other newspapers ; but my collection vanished two years ago in one of the recurring, vernal upheavals known as " spring cleanings," so that I can no longer quote chapter and verse.
—I am, Sir, &e., LANCELOT STORR.
Union Club, Carlton House Terrace, S.W. 1.
• [Colonel Storr is against us : the Oxford. Dictionary is with us. We carry on.—En. Spectator.]
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