Simon Skinner

E.S. Turner’s mention of the apocryphal encounter between John Wesley and ‘Beau’ Nash in Bath in 1739 reminded me of another later meeting in which Nash was supposedly bested (LRB, 21 July). Walking towards Wesley along a narrow pavement, Nash is said to have proclaimed, ‘I never make way for a fool.’ Stepping aside, Wesley replied: ‘Don’t you? I always do.’...

John Sturrock, in his review of The Keys of Egypt (LRB, 19 September), remarks that its authors ‘sink to a new low in asinine anglicisation by turning the Ecole Normale into the Normal School’. Whether this is quite such a low is debatable, but it is very far from new. A proposal for a teacher-training Normal School administrating non-denominational religious instruction was central to...

Another true story: a highly educated and linguistically gifted acquaintance, born and raised in Ohio, thought until adulthood that the opening line of ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ was a homage to the Hispanic element in the US melting pot: ‘José, can you see…’