27 SEPTEMBER 2008, Page 28

Dot’s warning

Sir: I am besotted by Dot Wordsworth, but you and she have let me down. Does nobody in your office check the copy that is sent in? You allowed her to open her piece (Mind your language, 20 September) with: ‘“Not really,” replied my husband when I asked if he thought it would be nice... ’ She should, of course, have written not if but whether; her sentence requires a determiner not a conditional. Please tell her that if she ever commits such a solecism again our affair is over. Michael Lynch

School of Historical Studies, University of Leicester