Sir, - Gabriel Rosenstock (May 18th) calls for a "life-saving operation" to be performed on the Irish language.
When, as a young shaver of 83, I returned home after nearly 60 years abroad, I plunged into the language of the Gael. I hit concrete. It took the form of two barbarities that ought to have been finished off with a spade long ago. I refer of course to lenition and ellipsis.
These rules impose multiple spellings on harmless nouns, for no earthly reason that I am aware of. You have a nice word like doras banged about as dhoras, ndoras, dorais, etc. Why?
This nonsense is throttling the language. Let's have that life-saving operation and get rid of the things before it is too late. - Yours, etc., P.A. McNamee,
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Dundrum, Dublin 14.