When Hamlet says a custom is more honoured in the breach than the observance, he means it is more honourable to break it than keep it, as is clear from the context (Claudius’s celebration of his usurpation of the throne). Your leader (Roast in peace, 5 March) turns it into the opposite. It is time to reclaim this misused phrase.
Desmond Painter
Bournemouth
• The last recognised bare-knuckle champion, John L Sullivan, died in 1918. I find it repulsive that you should even mention this primitive “sport”, let alone devote four pages to it (MMA: from ‘human cockfighting’ to global success, Sport, 5 March).
David Hurry
Hurstpierpoint, West Sussex
• I had a less positive experience of woodwork at my grammar school than Mr Jackson (Letters, 3 March). I took a term to make the prescribed letter rack. It was never used, as my father, like most normal people, opened the post on arrival.
Michael Cunningham
Wolverhampton
• In my early 1950s grammar school, clever girls (like me) did Latin; others biology. Thus I left with considerable gaps that had to be plugged by experience.
Elizabeth Dunnett
Malvern, Worcestershire
• With my thinning pate and staunch belief in nominative determinism, I can’t tell you how disappointed I am that UCL “hair scientist” David Balding’s first breakthrough has been to identify a gene linked to grey hair (Report, 2 March.)
Martyn Bedford
Ilkley, West Yorkshire
• Re the north-south exchange rate for lofty landmarks (Letters, 4 March): one Shard = 0.937 Emley Moor tower.
Tim Chapman
Huddersfield
• Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
