Madam, - Bring back Greek and Latin and a smattering of European history to our schools - please, please, before worse befalls our speech.
A recent Irish Times article on the RTÉ series on Mr Haughey called him "an iconoclastic" figure. But Mr Haughey was a maker rather than a breaker: I doubt he ever smashed a statue in his life. And in your magazine's "Cocktail Hour" of July 30th we were to be charmed by a "most iconoclastic gin". Pour it on a statue or a picture and watch them dissolve? And what of the stomach lining?
For the record, the word comes from the Greek, eikon (image) and klasma (breaking) and refers to an old quarrel between East and West over whether or not it was right to have statues of the saints in Christian churches. - Yours, etc,
DAPHNE POCHIN MOULD, Aherla, Co Cork.