7 JANUARY 1949, Page 21

WHOM

siR,—If Miss Rose Macaulay had been educated at Rugby in the nineties of last century, she would have learned that a grammatical anomaly, when perpetrated by you or me, is a " howler ", but that when found in the works of Cicero or Demosthenes it becomes an interesting example of attraction, or something equally dignified. In other words, grammar is a matter of usage rather than of logic. I have always understood that the Authorised Version was a fairly safe guide to standard English usage ; Shakespeare, of course, resembles Humpty-Dtunpty in his arbitrary dictatorship over words and constructions.—Yours faithfully, R. KENNAFtD DAVIS. On-the-Hill, Pilton, Shepton Mallet, Somerset.