Your curiosity about the workings of the Times letters page (Feedback, June 28 and July 5) knows no bounds. Victor Ross, of Kent, asks: “Does e-mail always outrun snail mail and catch the editor's eye first, so that the instant reply receives preference over the considered reply? Are we reading the opinions of an unrepresentative sample of Times readers, skewed towards those with access to the internet?”

I am only too familiar with the tendency of some e-mailers to fire off a breathtakingly rude e-mail first and remember their manners second. However, most of the (almost) instant letters we receive by e-mail are no less considered than the posted ones; and e-mailers, far from being an unrepresentative sample of Times readers, are now in the vast majority, and therefore entirely representative. Far more Times readers now use computers and e-mail than do not, and they expect to see the views of others on today's events tomorrow, not some time next week. That does not disenfranchise non-e-mailers; the post usually reaches us in 24 hours, and debate on the big issues can run over more than just one day, of course.

Chris Young e-mails from Bristol: “Having been heartened by a recent letters page free from the section in bold type on a ‘leading topic', I was disappointed to see that today's edition had reverted to this practice. The letters page should be a flowery meadow in which the reader can browse randomly for enjoyment and occasional illumination, not a signposted park. You could perhaps usefully mark with some typographical signal those letters from ministers and other officials which serve no purpose other than to reiterate their fixed views, but otherwise I believe a strict policy of non-discrimination should apply.”

If the letters page is a flowery meadow, I see the Feedback column as more of a rambling allotment, richly fertilised with well-rotted manure, where strange, exotic weeds occasionally take root among the well-ordered rows and the potting shed has Campari-soda on tap... sorry, where were we?

Slippery slope

I hang my head in shame for having sloppily lost an “n” from Brendan Taggart's name last week, thereby giving him a sex-change; no sooner had the poor chap written from Brighton to point out the error of Matthew Parris's ways than he had to write again to point out my own.

Stanley Smethurst writes from Colwyn Bay: “I have noticed lately, mostly in the Business or Money sections, that slither is being used to indicate a slight variation in interest rates or share prices. The latest example was in the article on Icesave, which asked: ‘Is the extra slither of interest worth the anxiety?' Were we being warned that this could be a slippery investment?”

I confess I sometimes have difficulty with slither and sliver, for which I blame my beloved father, who can't pronounce “th”; we beastly daughters used to amuse ourselves hugely by persuading him to say “Firty-two fousand fevvers on a frush's froat”. Ah yes, we made our own entertainment in those days.

Words worth

Elsewhere this week we have had a Palestinian construction worker who wrought havoc when he went on the rampage in Jerusalem when he should (grammatically speaking) have wreaked it; Pakistan doing its best to reign in militants; and lapwings rising from their grazing march.

The entire citizenry of Exeter rose as one yesterday to denounce us for locating a picture of sandwich-board wearers in London in the caption, when it was taken in their fine city. I give thanks to whoever spotted and corrected that one after the first edition, otherwise the protests could have been county-wide.

And Rappin Andy (look, I don't make them up) e-mails: “Do journalists have an internal ‘word of the month' competition? A few months ago ‘vex' was in virtually daily use by several people, and recently ‘obfuscate' seems to be prevalent.” If there is such a club, I haven't been invited to join; I am peeved, Groucho Marx notwithstanding.

Plain Honourable

Patrick Cracroft-Brennan, the editor, no less, of Cracroft's Peerage, sends us a light admonition: “Your report ‘Happy Valley heir begins his defence as trial drags on over second death' (July 8) begins: ‘The Right Honourable Thomas Cholmondeley plonks his gangly frame... '

“His father, the 5th Baron Delamere, is styled Right Honourable, a Privy Councillor is styled Right Honourable, even the Lord Mayor of York is styled Right Honourable - but the eldest son of a baron (along with his siblings and the children of a viscount and the sons of an earl) is styled plain Honourable.

“The rules regarding the styles of address used by the children of peers are not always clear, but there are plenty of reference works, my own included, where the correct answer can be found.”

We are indebted.

Over and out

That's the last time I invite Feedback readers into the ring for round two of anything.

OK, it probably isn't, but I'm still wading through dozens of letters on the matter of a singular or plural verb in the construction “One in 10 children is obese” (Feedback, last week). Nine out of ten cat owners, sorry, Times readers agree with both Fowler and our own style guide that the singular is correct and desirable in every sense.

There will be no round three.

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