Sir, – When I read of those who bemoan how the English language is becoming degraded with "coarse language" (Letters, September 2nd), all I read are those who wish the language to remain static and changeless.
I tend to suggest to such people to try and read Beowulf in the original Old English just to see how English has evolved.
We may have preferences of how language is used, but the object of any language is to communicate an idea. Whether I use octopuses, octopi, or perhaps even octopods, I imagine most will understand I am using the plural for octopus.
Further, the real joy of language is to use it in unexpected, imaginative ways, which one might find double plus good, as Winston Smith might in Orwell’s 1984.
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– Yours, etc,
PAUL LAVIN,
Harold’s Cross,
Dublin 6W.