Sir, - The film censor's certificates for the Beckett films running recently at the IFC have the following wording: "Ta an scannan seo feiliunach lena thaispeaint do chach."
If one disregards the final h (aspirate) in "chach", the meaning is one which surely would have amused Samuel Beckett. "Cach" means everyone. "Cac" means something quite different. As Arsene in Watt says in his "short statement" (25 pages long): "An ordure, from beginning to end." Remember Dan Rooney's words in All That Fall: "Do you know, Maddy, sometimes one would think you were struggling with a dead language." And Maddy's reply: "Well, you know, it will be dead in time, just like our own poor dear Gaelic, there is that to be said" (sound effect: urgent baa). - Yours, etc.,
Barry McGovern, Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin.