Madam, – I do not quarrel with Paul Tangney in his contention (June 18th) that language might be allowed to evolve so that “Fewer (students) than 20 per cent of Leaving Cert students” is understood to have the same practical meaning as “Less (a lesser percentage) than 20 per cent of Leaving Cert students”. I hope no one will laugh at me when I remind him, however, that evolution will have gone awry unless the former is followed by “have opted . . .” and the latter by “has opted . . .”. – Yours, etc,