THE EDITOR, Sir:

Many of your readers will have shared my exasperation at telephoning companies, particularly our utility providers, and being told, over and over, by a cheerful (sometimes foreign-sounding) recorded voice, to wait until an agent is available to speak with us.

We are repeatedly assured of how important our call is to the company, warned that our calls may be recorded for some purpose or another, and told at length of the tremendous benefits that we received from the company's operations.

Annoying

What has added to my annoyance, however, is the following advice: 'Your call will be handled in the order it was received'. One correct version of this statement would be, 'Your call will be handled in the order in which it was received'.

Perhaps someone told the person making the recording that an English sentence should not end with a preposition such as 'in', and so prevented the simple and effective ending of '... the order it was received in'. (Some will remember Winston Churchill's reply to the M.P. accusing him of this 'fault' in grammar. 'This is an impertinence up with which I will not put!)

I would like again to appeal for the return of the Gleaner's 'Mary Smith' column to address the problem of accuracy and appropriateness in the use of language.

I am, etc.,

PETER MAXWELL

P.O. Box 237

Kingston 7