Pronounced variation in naming the Telegraph

SIR – To lengthen the final syllable of Telegraph (Letters, June 21) – and this also applies to Greek neologisms such as photograph, chloroplast, osteopath

– is indeed a barbarism, given their unambiguously short vowels.

Thankfully, this strange modern affectation vitiates only final syllables. Though some have bastardised elastoplast with rhyming long a’s. I am yet to hear those who reward class with a long vowel extend the courtesy to the Classics. This long-a fetish, (to linguists the “Bath-trap split”), was initially experimentation by 17th-century Londoners; but such strange fancies have taken institutional hold.

If only the British had struck out separately when naming their technology, rather than cribbing from Claude Chappe’s off-the-mark coinage in 1792 of the word telegraphe, we would, I suspect, be holding a copy of The Daily Telegrapheus. Of course, although that would vouchsafe its rightfully short a, the gritty diphthongal close would usher in all sorts of fresh hell...

Dr D J Butterfield

Queens’ College, Cambridge