In correcting Donald Elliott’s “e unum pluribus” to ex uno plures, Paul Jenkinson (Letters, 28 January) has failed to see that, in the US’s motto, “e pluribus unum”, the gender of unum is neuter. His plures therefore is wrong, as that is the masculine or feminine plural of plus. What we need is the neuter plural plura. So, as he suggested: write out “ex uno plura” 100 times.
Michael Bulley
Chalon-sur-Saône, France
• Jim Gillings’s letter on mixed units (26 January) reminds me of trying to buy five yards of chicken netting in the 1970s. Told they sold it by the metre, I said five metres would be fine. What mesh size did I want? Thinking quickly, I said: “50 millimetres please.” Their reply: “We’ve got one-inch or two-inch.”
John Filby
Ashover, Derbyshire
• Tim Lott (Charities must adapt to a low-trust society, 28 January) could take a look at the non-profit GiveWell (givewell.org). It publishes analysis of several charities to show where his investment would do most good.
Andrew Lugton
Harrow, Middlesex
• Good to see that the Tate is holding a big Picasso exhibition next year, but “a once-in-a-lifetime show” (Report, 30 January)? It has already held two Picasso exhibitions billed as such within my lifetime (in 1960 and in 1994); perhaps I have simply been around too long.
Margaret Squires
St Andrews, Fife
• Has anyone else noticed the difference in the consistency of Weetabix (Letters, 30 January) over the past few months? There seems to be more air than wheat in it, and the addition of milk rapidly reduces it to mush.
Jane Kilsby
Countesthorpe, Leicestershire
• Here in Leicester we pedants love correcting people who insist on calling our main theatre, Curve, “the Curve” (Letters, 30 January).
Chris Hughes
Leicester
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