Notes & Asides

-- Dear Mr. Buckley: To quote a recent Wall Street Journal editorial, "The House of Representatives, as everyone knows, is that place where the Members address each other as 'The Gentlelady [one word] from Connecticut.'" I need some help on this.

"Ladies" and "Gentlemen" are terms to designate persons, female and male, of refined speech and manners. There are gentle ladies, but that is redundant. One could, I guess, say that a lady is a female gentleman. But the term "gentlelady" sounds stilted and not in keeping with the King's English.

My eighth-grade English teacher would have none of it, and she was ever a lady.

Sincerely,

David D. Ansel

Annapolis, Md.

Dear Mr. Ansel: What you ask puts us face to face with a discomfiting fruit of the women's movement. To refer to a "lady," other than as a complement to a "gentleman," is thought condescending. Clare Boothe Luce, e.g., reprimanded me on Firing Line for referring to her as a ("distinguished") lady.

It's similar to the problem bequeathed to us by the proscription against the use of "Dear Sirs." That was such a manageable way, back then, to begin a letter addressed to the Department of Motor Vehicles or the Circulation Department of National Review , or the editors of the Oxford English Dictionary , for that matter. But we can't do that, those of us who are running for president: Can you imagine a letter, other than to a Carthusian monastery, beginning with "Dear Sirs," and signed by Kerry, Dean, Graham, or any of those other people? He'd (Carol Moseley Braun gets in the way here) -- he/she would be tossed out of Iowa and New Hampshire on his/her ear by all the gentleladies acting in concert.

So, we just have to struggle along with, e.g., "Dear Sirs or Madams," but of course you do see the danger there. "Dear Sir/Ms." might get you by, but that leaves you feeling anal-compulsive. "To Whom It May Concern" sounds portentous on a petition for a form to renew your dog's registration, but what is there to do if one wants to retain some semblance of civility? Sorry I can't help you.

Cordially, WFB

-- Dear Mr. Buckley: I agree with your correspondent Helen Wildermuth (May 19) on the proper use of thank you/you're welcome, but she is mistaken about the German word danke -- it simply means "thank you." The answer to it is bitte , and the exchange goes as follows: Danke schoen/Bitte schoen or Danke sehr/Bitte sehr . There is one accepted and often-used variant: Danke schoen/Gern geschehen , which means "Thank you/It was my pleasure."

While I thoroughly enjoy the English language, I can't agree that English is a fuller language than German. A study of Goethe's Faust easily dissuades one from that opinion, not to mention the difficult and complicated grammatical structure of German.

Although I might be talked into a draw.

Horst Brakel

New York, N.Y.

-- Dear Mr. Buckley: The June 30 issue of NR mentions "famine in the [ sic ] Ukraine."

I hope that in the future one may read about famine in the Ireland, the China, or the India.

William J. McNamara

New Britain, Conn.

-- Dear Mr. Buckley: You extolled the virtues of peanut butter so eloquently in the course of a biographical sketch shown on TV that I have no doubt that you should be the one to compose an "Ode to Peanut Butter." Do it well, lest the ode be odious, and do it without delay so that I may enjoy it before I gasp away, a fate known to happen to octogenarians in large numbers at unpredictable moments. The world cries out for an "Ode to Peanut Butter." Are you up to the task?

Jim Schmitt

Ashland City, Tenn.

Dear Mr. Schmitt: Not a chance. Am not up to the challenge, and Shakespeare's dead.

Cordially,

-- WFB

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