READERS’ WORDS

You recently referred to temper as meaning hardening with respect to steel. It should be hardened and tempered steel. Fully hardened steel can scratch glass but is very brittle. It has to be tempered back to a lower hardness to make it suitable for use as, eg, a knife blade. Your column is a great relief after the gloom, doom and mayhem of the news, sport and financial sections. Please keep it going. — Martin van Niekerk

Re last week’s Pedant Class, you cannot say “the pizza’s topping” any more than you can say “the house’s roof”. Both are inanimate, so must take the genitive case, ie “the topping of the pizza” and “the roof of the house”. — John Wilkinson

Neil Gibbs’ letter about prepositions sparked this old memory regarding the importance of punctuation. Please make sense of the following sentence: John where Jack had had had had had had had had had the examiner’s approval. Answer: It’s in the context of commenting on the results of an English exam. John, where Jack had had ‘had had’, had had ‘had’. ‘Had had‘ had had the examiner’s approval. — Doug Laurie

As a retired pedantic pedagogue of 40 years, I enjoyed the article on the dratted apostrophe. I grit my teeth when I see notices and posters with the apostrophe stuck in at a whim. I used to tell my pupils they’d be more likely to get it right if they left out the apostrophes than if they stuck them in any old how. The rule: if uncertain, leave it out. — Sandra de Roubaix • E-mail words in need of protection to lifestyle@sundaytimes.co.za