Your Letters
15:50 UK time, Monday, 18 December 2006
Re: the first item in 10 things we didn't know last week that just 20 words make up a third of teenagers' everyday speech. If this is a measure of verbal skills, then teenagers do rather better than ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ reporters, who get by with a mere 17. I counted the most frequently used words in the article. They are: the (25), of (13), in (11), and (10), to (10), but (9), a (8), is (7), words (7), as (6), no (6), it (5), said (5), speech (5), by (4), he (4), teenagers (4). Together they make up just a third (139 out of 417) of the words used in the report.
Peter Howard, Cambridge, UK
Re: The request from T. Shandy (Letters, Friday) for a word to describe refusing something that is given away for free. How about "refuseling"? The art or gesture of any unwilling recipient individual to accept things free or otherwise!
Dickie, NY, USA
Re: The more enthusiastically someone tries to give me a free newspaper, the less I want to take it. It's chronicle fatigue.
Candace, New Jersey, US
I also suffer from the freebie-jeebies.
Stacey Zoo, London
I think it's called 'cutting off your news despite your face'.
Peter Collins, Belfast
I feel exactly the same. I think it's called "being normal".
Darren McCormac, London
Appropriate names for appropriate jobs watch alert! So the manager for the Birmingham National Sea life centre is !!
Violette Cameron, Sarajevo, Bosnia
Surely the biggest question regarding Lembit Opik is: having resolved to leave Sian Lloyd for a Cheeky Girl, how did he then decide which one of the twins to run off with?
MJ Simpson, Leicester, UK
The 
