Sit up at the back, we have a deputy head teacher with us. Ray Everitt writes from High Storrs School, Sheffield: “I wonder if I could ask a favour? Part of my role is proof-reading every written letter and policy, information, PR document etc etc, that leaves the building. I have often thought of issuing a ‘house rules' document to all staff, thus, theoretically at least, easing my workload. The problem is... where do I start? Teachers are adept at making different mistakes every time they write! Are you able to suggest a possible format?”

I could do no better than point him in the direction of The Times Style Guide online (type “Style Guide” into the search box in the top right-hand corner of the home page at timesonline.co.uk and it should be the first link that comes up), and suggest that he adopt the basics, and adapt our many political/historical entries to a school setting.

He has replied: “Thank you so much for this; I had not realised the guide was in the public domain. There are numerous areas that can be adapted for our use. A key area for us is achieving the right tone; even if we are sending out a negative letter such as a detention or similar, I try to ensure that it is written positively. Thus we develop phrases such as ‘I am sure you will wish to support the school...' and so on.” Good to know that spin is by no means restricted to politics, isn't it?

The Elephant Man

There is now in a little room off one our attic wards a man named Joseph Merrick, aged about 27, so dreadful a sight that he is unable even to come out by daylight to the garden

• The Elephant Man: thanks

• Death Of "The Elephant Man"

Spell check

One of Mr Everitt's school houses now uses the Times national spelling bee as a form exercise, he tells me, and it has “discombobulated” some pupils: excellent. We launched the spelling bee precisely because we know the importance that Times readers attach to correct spelling, recent laissez-faire policies advocated by some bonkers commentators notwithstanding. The details are at timesonline.co.uk/spellingbee, but in summary it is a national championship for schools open to 11 to 12-year-olds. The deadline is December 19, and the contest proceeds from local knockout heats next March to regional finals in May and a grand final in London in June.

Schoolboy humour

In the recent exchanges in this column on the “verbing” of nouns I suggested that we had seen only one complaint. Not so, protested Nigel Karmel, of London; he too had complained, but I had ignored him. My sincere apologies. However, Mr Karmel had another point: “Lack of basic English grammar seems also to extend to another of your columnists, Giles Coren [September 20]: ‘Sir, sir, which day did He create dinosaurs on'. Need I say more?”

When I was letters editor a perennial debate concerned the extent to which sub-editors should “save” correspondents from themselves. Generally, we correct all spelling and most grammatical errors in readers' letters, but aim to preserve their individual “voice”. Giles was using the “voice” of a lively childhood schoolmate for humorous effect, and it would have been absurd for his schoolboy to say: “Sir, sir, on which day did He create dinosaurs?” I know of no schoolboy who would say such a thing (please don't write in to say that little Tarquin most certainly would; good for Tarquin, but I fear for his wellbeing at break).

Call to alms

Last month I mentioned the generosity of readers who twice recently have been moved to help individuals they read about in our pages. Rose Wild, the editor of the Times Archive, points out that this is nothing new - Times readers saved Joseph Merrick, the Elephant Man.

In December 1886 F.C. Carr Gomm, the chairman of the London Hospital, to which Merrick had made his way after a dismal life in freak shows, wrote to The Times: “There is now in a little room off one of our attic wards a man named Joseph Merrick, aged about 27, so dreadful a sight that he is unable even to come out by daylight to the garden. He ought not to be detained in our hospital (where he is occupying a private ward, and being treated with the greatest kindness - he says he has never before known in his life what quiet and rest were), since his case is incurable, and not suited, therefore, to our overcrowded general hospital; the incurable hospitals refuse to take him in even if we paid for him in full, and the difficult question therefore remains what is to be done for him... Terrible though his appearance is, yet he is superior in intelligence, can read and write, is quiet, gentle, not to say even refined in his mind... Can any of your readers suggest to me some fitting place where he can be received?”

On January 5, 1887, Carr Gomm wrote again to report that Times readers had contributed enough to keep Merrick at the hospital for four or five years, and that the governors had decided to allow him to stay where he had settled so happily.

“Merrick has desired me to say that he has never had so happy and peaceful a Christmas time as he has had now. He is newly clothed and well supplied with books and papers, while the kind care of the sister and nurses, with visits from the chaplain and others, relieves the monotony of his existence.” The Times donations kept him for the rest of his life. He died in 1890 and Carr Gomm wrote again to the Editor: “I wrote to you and from that moment all difficulty vanished ... It was the courtesy of The Times in inserting my letter in 1886 that procured for this afflicted man a comfortable protection during the last years of a previously wretched existence, and I desire to take this opportunity of thankfully acknowledging it.”

timesonline.co.uk/archiveblog

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