Felipe Fernández-Armesto is annoyed by students’ ignorance of their own language (“Irrevocably tongue-tied”, Opinion, 22 May): they submit essays riddled with repetition, clichés, jargon and the horrors of syntactical disfigurement. He would like to see – across disciplines – “clarity, concision and accuracy in the use of English”.
But if students are to write precisely with a?“love of language”, don’t they need to find some topic related to their university subject about which they care greatly? I guess the lucky ones fall head over heels with almost everything on the syllabus.
Neil Richardson
Kirkheaton, West Yorkshire