REV. SNOOKS.

Waiapu Church Gazette, Volume 27, Issue 6, 1 June 1937, Page 1

REV. SNOOKS.

Is it too late to make a serious protest against the increasingly common, vulgar error of speaking about, or even to, clergy as Reverend Snooks, sometimes abbreviated to Rev.? I make no apology for calling it vulgar, for that is the very word the Oxford Dictionary applies to the practice. Of course, m conversation the word reverend is wholly unnecessary nineteen times out of twenty. Gall him Mr Snooks if you wish to

be polite, Snooks or John Snooks if you wish to be familiar. But even m writing the adjective is surely unnecessary except m formal lists and the envelopes of letters. And when you do use it, it ought to be the Reverend John Snooks or the Rev. J. Snooks, or if you have unfortunately forgotten even the initial of his Christian name, the Reverend Mr Snooks. Never, never mind, please, the abomination of Reverend Snooks. You might as well call his brother, the lawyer, Snooks, Esq. I wish Mr A. P. Herbert would take the matter up. He has done such good service m purging our language. This usage was all but unknown when l was young, at any rate m England, and I do not think that it is as common there as here even to-day. It is an interesting speculation how it arose. Ignorance, no doubt, m part, a misguided desire to please, m part; but I strongly suspect our old friend the inferiority complex is lurking about m the background. However, it is dangerous to enlarge on that.