KNOWING that this is a column of catholic tastes but Protestant upbringing, Ernie Reynolds in Wheatley Hill invites consideration of the term "left footer".

In the North-East as possibly elsewhere, it is a reference to Roman Catholics - and so far as may be ascertained, with no offence intended.

Cobwebbed legend has it that the phrase originated among the Irish peat bogs. Protestant labourers were given a spade with a right-sided shaft, Catholics had a left-sided shaft.

The theory, it is true, doesn't support deep digging.

The ubiquitous Ernie, ingeniously, wonders if it might owe rather more to Wee Willie Winkie and go back to the tumultuous reign of Henry VIII, who persecuted Catholics.

"Could Wee Willie Winkie have been a name for soldiers of the king and the 'nightgown' their uniform?

"As the soldiers went upstairs and downstairs, were the soldiers searching for Catholics and was the old man who wouldn't say his prayers one of them?

"Since they took him by the left leg and threw him down the stairs, is that how the term 'left footer' came into being?"

Even a nursery rhyme education suggests it unlikely, but if that's not the etymology of left footer - or the reason that Wee Willie Winkie rode through the town - then what is?

Readers are invited once more to put their best foot, either foot, forward....

WHAT really kept the column awake over the weekend was the "Practise Writing Book" we bought at Trinity Methodist Church's Spring Fair in Spennymoor.

(The stallholder had also tried to flog us a couple of spiral backed notebooks but we get those, tools of the trade, for nowt.)

Whilst "practise writing" may be essential hereabouts, the spelling is curious. "Practice", as O-level English students used to know, is a noun; "practise" is a verb.

The more obvious use is therefore "Practice writing", which wouldn't say much for the stationery maker. "Practise writing" - an injunction, perhaps - might also be considered correct, however.

After much debate we turned, sleepless, to the back cover. Others in the series, it said, included Practise Drawing, Practise Counting and Practise Exercise Book - and whilst you can practise drawing and counting, you certainly can't practise exercise book. A case, alas, of practice making imperfect.

MARTIN Snape in Durham draws attention to the use "by a columnist not far from your heart" of the expression "bored of".

"It prompted me to wonder why we are now bored of something and no longer bored with it. Perhaps changing the expression helps to avoid boredom?"

The fragrant Ms Griffiths - for it is she - may be exonerated, however. The headline "Bored of the rings" was applied by a sub-editor to a comment piece on Lord of the Rings and, since it was a pretty passable pun, it too may be excused.

The lady is not for burning.

COLIN Anderson, leader of Sunderland City Council, nonetheless enjoyed being reminded of happy days at St John's Church of England Primary, 1951-57.

A companion book, he recalls, was called The Young Citizen - about civic affairs, and budgets, and things.

"Did it stir my early interest in politics?" Colin muses. Does anyone still have a copy to lend?

LAST week's column, of course, was largely devoted to memories of the book First Aid in English - fundamental in formative years - and to a test based upon it.

Most questions were on English usage, in which we can usually gain a pass mark, the last one involved having to think. That was the mistake.

"On one side of my street," the question said, "the houses all have odd numbers, ending with the baker's which is number 17. On the other side the numbers are all even, ending with the draper's, which is number 18. Fred Thompson is my next-door neighbour and his house is number ten. You pass my house when walking from the draper's to Fred's. What number is my house?"

The correct answer, as so many readers gleefully have pointed out, was number 12. Gadfly, wholly to blame, egregiously claimed it to be 14.

First Aid? This is an emergency.

A "STABLE" is too obvious a collective noun for Store horses, or even a hoof. A dependability may be more appropriate for such solid old servants, or - perhaps - a Society.

We'd recalled them a couple of weeks back, lamented the lack of photographic evidence.

Ethel Dobson in Bishop Auckland, deep rooted in the Co-operative movement, has now kindly loaned a copy of "The People's Store", a history of North-East Co-ops with horses on every doorstep.

This one's from Sherburn Hill Co-op, east of Durham, with which were amalgamated Haswell, Easington Lane and South Hetton, and Pittington.

...and finally, the list of meeting room bookings at the Ramside Hall Hotel in Durham last Thursday included a seminar on "tropical tax issues."

Whether it was a misprint or a reflection of the growing numbers fleeing the Inland Revenue for the Cayman Islands, we are wholly unable to say.

Since Gadfly's tax concerns are more topical than tropical, however, we expect again to be earning an honest crust - and having a third of it deducted - next week.

Published: 10/04/2002