THE Oxford English Dictionary states that reverend is an adjective eg “The Reverend Smith”, or a noun (informal) eg: “He is a retired reverend.”

Grandad is listed as either grandad or granddad, so it is down to personal preference.

I have always preferred and used grandad, as the additional “d” in the middle looks redundant.

G Carr, Aycliffe Village

FURTHER to my letter about the use of the word “reverend”, in Memories on Saturday (Echo, Sept 16) you reproduced a page from 1957 in which the Echo correctly referred to a clergyman as “Mr Davies”.

Why have things changed? Is it because, as I suspect, of the increasing use of American English?

And why in the same day’s paper did you find it necessary to refer to Malcolm Tonge as a “reverend”. Could he not have been given his proper title, a priest?

Peter Elliott, Eaglescliffe​