Answers to Correspondents

New Zealand Tablet, Volume L, Issue 11, 15 March 1923, Page 21

Answers to Correspondents

I H. G. —Sorry we cannot lend you the book you mention. Two years ago we lent it to a man who was to bring it back in a weak. It has not come hither yet. He says he lent it to another man who lent it to another ■■ man. - t

Constant Reader. —Your essay on ''How to make Dunedin dry" comes too late. If you had told us how to do it before the wet summer began we should thank you i very much. At present we are reconciled, and have almost come to be proud of the way it can rain here. I We have given the West Coast fourteen pounds and a beating this year. ,

Backblock Poet. —There are few pure vowel sounds in English. The "a" in fame is a compound of "a" and "ee"; "i" is made up of broad "a" and "ee" ; "u" is a combination of "ee" and "oo"; "o" is often a glide from "o" to "u" short. In Latin, Italian, German, French, Gaelic, and Greek the pure vowel ■ sounds are the commonest, e.g., nomen, padre, sehen, pere, sagart, sophia, etc.

J. L.— was Augustine Birrell who said "It is the Mass that matters." Read his Essays and you will enjoy them. They have sand in them. We do not know whether it was Parr, Nosworthy, or Massey who said, Aprcs moi le deluge. But as Mr. Massey was in Paris it may have been he who said it, thinking it meant "Open the bathroom 'for me." (After shaking hands with one of his P.P. Ass supporters.