Re the news headline ‘From daily spread may grow dumb babies’ (WDDTY, vol 12 no 10, p 11), I realise that Lynne McTaggart is from the USA and that there are US readers, but I feel that a publication based in the UK should stick to word usage as found in the UK. Here, the word ‘dumb’ means unable to speak, not intellectually challenged. I’m not a ‘British English above all’ fanatic, but there really are issues of mutual incomprehension. I adjust my mind when reading something I know is a US publication but, in a UK one, I expect UK English.- Alice Bondi, via e-mail
WDDTY replies: Sorry we have such a dumb editor. We’ll speak to her – and our two other Yanks.