MM. les Redacteurs: Now C'est "vis-a-vis"!

The Nieman Fellows reeled for a while this year as professor after professor, throw at them: "vis-a-vis this problem," and "vis-a-vis" that one. The phrase is taboo in every city room in the country--the peasants might not understand it. But as the year went on, and editors and publishers made evening talks to the group, it seems that the editors themselves are promoting this sort of thing. A quiet poll shows that Frank J. Starzel, general manager of The Associated Press, said vis-a-vis at 8:23 p.m., Carroll Binder, of the Minneapolis Tribune at 9:27, Barry Bingham of the Louisville Courier Journal said it twice (unclocked) and Arthur Hays Sulzberger of the New York Times at 10:22 p.m. (but the meeting started late).

Which has led the Fellows to think this phrase may soon appear in the public prints, and chant quietly to themselves:

It's vis-a-vis, it's vis-a-vis!

That's the phrase that's got to be!

Stress the foreign, keep it vague.

Commonplace is but a plague.

A clear statement of our knowledge

Is out of place at Harvard College.