Letter: Roundly irritating

Monday 28 December 1998 00:02 GMT

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Sir: The latest complaint in The Irritations of Modern Life wrongly refers to "round robins" (Review, 23 December).

A round robin is not a circular letter from one person to several people.

It is a collective letter from several people to one person, usually in the form of a protest or petition about a grievance, with the signatures arranged in a circle so that no one's name appears at the top, in order to avoid the victimisation of ringleaders.

One of the most irritating irritations of modern life is the way people get this kind of thing wrong.

ANNA FREEMAN

Leighton Buzzard,

Bedfordshire

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