PARADIGMS REGAINED

Holley makes no mention of it, but one has to wonder if Bill Bryson, author of “The Mother Tongue,” credits Sir Walter Scott at least in a footnote for the original observation (“Ivanhoe,” 1819) that “after the invasion of the Norman French, the animals in the fields retained Anglo-Saxon names . . . but their meat, once brought to the table, was French.”

HARRY H. GONDA MD

IRVINE