20 AUGUST 1921, Page 15

AUTHORS' FAVOURITE WORDS.

[To THE EDITOR Of THE " SPECTATOR."]

Sin,—Few readers of Mr. Arnold Bennett's novels can fail to have noticed the habitual use of the word "naught." The word is, no doubt, in common use in the Five Towns, and its use in conversations in Five Towns novels is, of course, quite proper. Mr. Bennett, however, makes use of this—in my opinion—ugly word with marked frequency in the descriptive passages of his hooks, and I have wondered whether this pecu- liarity may be attributable to a subconscious lapse on Mr. Bennett's part into the language of the people he describes with