Your right to say it wrong

QUESTION Is it correct to attribute to Voltaire the quote: ‘I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it’?

This was not a quote by French Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire, but a summing up of his thinking by Evelyn Beatrice hall, who wrote under the pseudonym s. G. Tallentyre.

The quote is taken from 1906’s The Friends Of Voltaire, an anecdotal biography told through the lives of ten men close to him.

One was a rival philosopher, Claude-Adrien helvetius. in his 1758 work De l’esprit (On The Mind), he suggested that a course of action is chosen because of the pleasure or pain that will result.

The book was considered blasphemous and was publicly burned. While Voltaire did not agree with helvetius’s views, he condemned the burning.

it was hall who summarised Voltaire’s thoughts: ‘ “What a fuss about an omelette!” he had exclaimed when he heard of the burning. how abominably unjust to persecute a man for such an airy trifle as that! “i disapprove of what you say, but i will defend to the death your right to say it,” was his attitude now.’

Evelyn Turner, Birmingham.

QUESTION I recently learned that the hole in a Biro pen lid is a safety feature. What other items have a purpose of which we are not generally aware?

FurThEr to earlier answers, both ends of cling-film containers have perforations. Push them in and they will hold the roll in place when you use it. Clive Gladstone, Cullercoats, Tyne and Wear.