Much as I lament the decline in hedgehogs (Fears for hedgehogs as sightings become more rare [this was the headline printed in the newspaper], 6 February), I am also perplexed by the slow extinction of the Germanic comparative and superlative forms of short adjectives such as rarer (which would have been neater, better and more idiomatic than “more rare” in this headline) and rarest. What is causing this shift to the periphrastic and more cumbersome Latinate forms with more and most?
Greg Brooks
Emeritus professor of education, University of Sheffield
• Nice to become fiction at a time of unbearable reality (Two plays celebrate Burnley as unlikely birthplace of gay civil rights in the UK, 8 February). I gather I’m in one of the plays for saying in Burnley Central Library in 1971: “We are talking as if there are only two gay men in Burnley and five in Lancashire … I want every gay man in the room to stand up.” May I inquire who’s playing me?
Andrew Lumsden
London
• I was heartened to read the column discussing the merits of women’s netball (Sport, 14 February). But over the past few days I have been unable to find any reports of the Women’s Six Nations Rugby competition which has been played alongside the men’s. Is this because netball is viewed as a sport for girls, whereas rugby is a sport (only) for boys?
Sue Gold
London
• Growing up in the 1940s and 50s in a family with four sons, money was not always available to buy new shoes or even for repairs. So after a hearty breakfast of cereals we cut up the empty boxes to line our shoes and block the holes. It is no exaggeration to say that Weetabix saved our soles (Letters, passim).
Neil Gadsby
Balscote, Oxfordshire
• Just when I thought all was lost. The political world in turmoil. Then along comes the revival of the 35mm film canister. Well done Richard Llewelyn (Letters, 10 February). I laughed out loud.
Margaret Prosser
Labour, House of Lords
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