GATESGATE
Daryl Gates and Gertrude Stein (Letters, Oct. 4) may have been “separated at birth,” but Stein’s roseate “A rose is a rose is a rose” was separated from her shortly after its birth.
It is now used as a model for tautologies, in which the identity of something is affirmed as its identity, despite its original idea that to say “a rose is a rose” is a verbal “rose.”
Bill Lovelace’s line, “A cop is a cop is a cop,” does not make this kind of sense. But “a cop is a cop is a cop-out” would.
KENNETH H. BONNEL, LOS ANGELES
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