WHATMOUGH COULD YOU ASK?

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

Critics should mean what they say, and say what they mean. They are reported to say that the Harvard department of Linguistics is "not distinguished." The evidence is that its international reputation is of the highest; that it is distinguished by its independence of the behaviorist school of linguistics which dictates the "party" line in other American universities; that it is distinguished by its refusal to divorce linguistics from other subjects, to languish undernourished; that it is distinguished by the lead that it has taken in Mathematical Linguistics.

Let me add that it is distinguished also by its need of funds, and personnel. Granted, this distinction is by no means uncommon--or enviable; it is, however, not irremeable either. Joshua Whatmough   Chairman,   Department of Linguistics

P.S.--Will you please not "edit" this word? (the word is irremeable. Ed.). It is just what I mean and correctly spelled, too.

(For our readers who are not of the Linguistics department and who would have to consult the dictionary as we did, the word means "not admitting of return." Ed.)