Sir, - When I was at school over sixty years ago, much emphasis was put on grammar and structure in producing good basic English. I had a teacher who had a bee in his bonnet about the word "only" in its adverbial use, and the placing of it in sentences next to the word or phrase it modified.
A recent article headed "The Decline of English in your Education Supplement contained this sentence: "A lack of writing skills can only be remedied by more practice". The writer, I presume meant, "only by more practice".
An instruction on your Births, Marriages and Deaths page reads: "Death notices will only be accepted from Funeral Directors etc." You must mean only from Funeral Directors." Am I being pedantic? Yours etc.,
Little Island,
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Co. Cork.