Henry Jennings Unmasked

I write to express my concern at the sudden downturn in your usually impeccable tastes that allowed you to print Henry Jennings' review of "Vietnamese Phrasebook", in the May 23 Salient.

The man is quite patently an academic fraud and I wonder that you did not spot this as soon as his babblings crossed your desk. The sort of man who can spend his time grubbing among the refuse of the American involvement in Vietnam, completely ignoring the on-going struggle in that country, is quite clearly not the sort of aware writer your paper generally encourages.

His bourgeois academic origins are further betrayed by his predilection for tautological phrases and his obvious urge to indulge his need for juvenile voyeurism.

An example of Jennings' abuse of the English language is the pompous sentence "A major shortcoming of the book is the lack of referents given for the frequent consequences of such casual (i.e. sexual) relationships." Why couldn't he say simply "The book gives no words for pox"?

It is noticeable that Jennings attempts to hide hit own prurient interest in sex by beginning one paragraph with "The more salacious among us....." Who's kidding whom?

The only explanations for your editorial lapse in printing this rubbish are that you suffered a temporary mental derangement or received a backhander from Jennings. Neither explanation confers much credit on you. Kindly mend your ways and I shall continue to be your ever-delighted reader.

Ted Sheehan