General questions
Sir: I always enjoy Mr Benny Green's articles, many of which are on subjects about which I am sure he knows far more than many writers. I respect his opinions and shall resist the temptation to swap some of mine about the merits and demerits of various British generals (January 26).
But on two questions of fact. Mr Green seems to have gone all archaic suddenly when writing "from bedchamber commanders like Haig to megalomaniac lushes like Cardigan." If 'bedchamber' is used in the sense of 'bedroom' it seems an odd term to apply to Haig, whose courage even his fiercest critics have not usually questioned and whose private life was blameless. If it is a reference to a Royal
bedchamber, and thus, presumably, to Haig's friendship with King George V, it seems to me a bit snide, and not particularly relevant to Haig's talents as a commander. In any case Haig had seen a good deal of action in the Boer War and elsewhere.
What is the evidence that Cardigan, whose faults I have enumerated myself. elsewhere, was a 'lush'? I take it that Mr Green uses the word as the Americans have long done to mean `a drunk.' sometimes even an alcoholic. According to my edition of the OED the word is archaic in English, though well known to all of us and predating the American usage, but its correct singular is actually ilushy' and therefore its plural presumably lushies,' not 'lushes.' Or is this midAtlantic usage of Mr Green's?
Richard Brett-Smith 14 Crick Road, Oxford
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