Mensa, Mensae

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30055, 13 February 1963, Page 8

Mensa, Mensae

Sir, —I thank your “E.8.L.,” Although he faults me. Truth to tell. It’s many years since I looked up The O.E.D. or following supp. On octopods, -podes, -puses; and (As I’m swift to understand) I may have misremembered, or Lexicography’s gone before. Tidying up . . . as always! Yet Readers will not, I hope, forget That my main end was to The impossible plural, “octopi”— An end on which your "E.8.L.” And I converge exactly well. We meet as well, sir, on a neater, Sweeter little point of metre. Your controversialists from time To time are tempted into rhyme And tum-tii-tum and bathos. Ears So dull, time-sense so weak, and “Here’s Richness.” in the phase of Squeers. But “E.8.L,” to my delight. Retorts in accents ever right: Retorts in rhythm trim and tact, In sense judicious, sharp, and packed. Thank him (or her), sir, if you will, For a correction and a thrill. —Yours, etc., J.H.E.S. February 11. 1963