ACROGRAMS

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 13, 17 January 1933, Page 6

ACROGRAMS

(To the Editor.) Sir,—Allow me to. congratulate '"'The Post" on the jolly old dig in the ribs wliich it so ably administered to Doctor Vizetelley in its leading article on Saturday evening. His •'lexiphanatical sonainbulprating" threatens to be a curse to our already distressed language, and I consider that those of us who agree with your dissertation, should make arrangements to have your article cabled to him in extenso. As s. combatant in the war, I did not fear the enemy so much as I detested the ill-born ''aerograms" ■which it begot, such as "WREN," "WAAC," "DORA," "ANZAC," etc. There is some pleasure and profit in most portmanteau words, Their creation shows imagination and sometimes ingeniousness on the part of a writer who desires to more aptly describe his thought than is possible -within the prescribed limits o£ words already coined. On the other-hand, the aerogram is more often coined by minds too inept and too slothful to spell in its entirety, the title which the average aerogram so weakly represents. •' - - ■ . I used to devour a lot of literature respecting the new regime in Russia, until their NEPS, PROFITERNS, COMITERNS, ARTORGS, and-other "hotchbotch" .ords forced me to read as little of this stuff as I possibly can, and even now, when I meet one of these aerograms in a sentence I just say: "Manners street." Naturally, I lose the grasp of the context and the argument, and Russia loses a potential disciple.—l am, etc.,