Humour

Further to the letter I quoted on Friday, there has been continued discussion on the Guardian letters page, for example on Saturday:

Surely the late, great Paul Foot was a leg-end in his own lifetime. Ian Iles Taunton, Somerset

And today:

I wish to claim authorship of the original Michael Foot leg-end letter (Letters, October 6). I can't recall the long-ago date but it was in response to a suggestion that, were the great man ever to become defence secretary, the Guardian could proclaim "Foot heads arms body". John Smith Sheffield

Great.

I came across a delightful quote in today's Guardian letters page. Their online version does not preserve paper layout (and some of my RSS versions will mangle similarly), but it went as follows:

I'm always surprised by how often the word legend, usually when applied to sportsmen, ends up hyphenated to leg- end (Harassment trial lifts lid on sex and sleaze at the New York Knicks, October 4). Is this a game played by subeditors to ensure the word is always split? If so, please arrange for this letter to be suitably edited so I can become a leg- end in my own lifetime as an occasional letter writer to the Guardian. Ron Brewer Old Buckenham, Norfolk

I don't know what I find more appealing, the compliance in the second instance, or the self-illustrating example in the first.