WALTER A. WILLIS, 170 Upper Newtownards Road, Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Dear Arthur:
I did my best to take Wilkie Conner's story about the spaceship and the six dwarfs seriously, but really! My theory is that the poor little men were members of the Irish Republican Army. Anyway their anthem begins "Soldiers are Wee ..." The u nknown language is probably Erse. Very few even of us can understand it so it's no wonder they lost their way. Pity they got so burned up about it. They must have been in a hurry, but that's no reason to suppose they were Russian. Or was it because they w ere fellow-travellers?
I've been meaning to ask what's all this talk about four-letter Anglo-Saxon words? Don't know why the Sassenachs should get all the credit -- surely these indispensable monosyllables mostly come from Latin? One of the Latin roots survives almost uncha nged in our word for "wedge-shaped" and the most famous of them all is in polite use in the contortional French expression "Je m'en fous". Or do you people have an entirely different lot of unprintable expressions? If so, all I can s ay is that those boys of yours who were over here were very quick on the uptake.
I see Slater and I were neck and neck again, both asking for permission to reprint Roscoe. I've stepped aside in Ken's favour because he is working with professional printers and has to maintain a schedule. Besides, I had a duty to Roscoeism -- Ken's circulation is bigger than mine. (So far.)
What a country to live in -- Roscoe, the hydrogen bomb, and Doris Day!
Yours sincerely,
(sig Walter)
Text versions and page scans Judy Bemis
Data entry by Judy Bemis
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