Stop putting old folk out of their 'forever homes'
No amount of charity windfall can make up for people's right to spend their last days in a home of their choice.
Susan Martin, Rutherglen.
A curious lack of doctors
I recently spent much of a weekend and a weekday at our local hospital's Urgent Care day unit.
The care and attention I received from dialling 111 to eventual discharge from Urgent Care was consistently first class.
From receptionists to support staff to students to the nurses, all were polite, helpful, patient, caring and good at their jobs. They acted like this to myself and from my observation, to everyone in the unit.
One interesting thing I noticedm though. Over several hours on each of the three days I saw no doctor on the ward. Nurses were in charge. As far as I could see, no doctor was called in to visit any patient whilst I was there. On discharge, I was advised by the nurse in charge of my case that she had phoned a doctor to ask advice regarding my diagnosis and care plan. That was it.
I wonder if having no doctors visible in the Urgent Care unit is policy or is it due to a shortage?
Lyn McLean, Falkirk.
Read more letters
A Tiger or a Golden Bear?
Watching Scottie Scheffler stroll to a superb Open victory on Sunday (July 20) I would have to agree that it was not 'exciting', but for us golf nuts it was watching a masterclass in strategy and execution.
Of course, no sooner had the last putt dropped than there were claims that he was the next Tiger destined to dominate the game for a generation. To his credit Scheffler himself said this was 'silly" given Tiger's record.
For my own I part was dismayed that there was not one mention of Jack Nicklaus's 18 majors and utter dominance of the game through three decades, although Tiger himself judged his achievements against Jack's.
For those of us who witnessed Nicklaus in his prime there are some striking similarities to Scheffler's approach and style of play: essentially don't do anything stupid and let the opposition make mistakes.
Nicklaus, aka the Golden Bear, has said that on any given day he had 25% of the field beaten before he had even started. Scheffler plays the same way.
So, while it is early days I think the better comparison is with Nicklaus rather than Tiger.
Sadly, we will have to wait nearly nine months to read the next chapter.
Keith Swinley, Ayr.
Avenues? What avenues?
Improvements to the quality of road surfaces and structures that make up the public realm of Glasgow's main thoroughfares are to be welcomed ('First look at substantial transformation plans for Argyle Street in Glasgow", [[The Herald]], July 17). However, on viewing the picture of the proposed improvements to Argyle Street I query the use of the term 'avenue'. The Oxford Dictionary describes an avenue as 'a broad road in a town or city, typically having trees at regular intervals along its sides'. With this definition in mind, it is disappointing to see so few trees proposed, never mind any 'avenue' of trees.
Stephen Downs, Falkirk.
Jack Nicklaus, also known as the Golden Bear (Image: Newsquest)
So Scotland wanted Brexit?
I refer to the pending visit to Scotland of President Trump ("Swinney insists Trump costs will be met", The Herald, July 23).
During a previous visit to Scotland he was here at the time of the Brexit vote. He made the following observation: "Just arrived in Scotland. Place is going wild over the vote. They took their country back, just like we will take America back."
Like many of his remarks and commentaries, it did not quite square with reality. Scotland voted against Brexit.
Ian W Thomson, Lenzie.
Amn't I correct?
David Miller's impression that posh people are more likely to make grammatical blunders than us proles (Letters, July 19) isn't merely fanciful.
This is probably because a commonly-made error often comes to sound better than the correct form after a while. Would-be posh people (mostly English speakers of English – Scots and Irish are more careful) invariably use the absurd contradiction "aren't I?" instead of the correct "amn't I?"
This kind of observation isn't new. In Book I of Paradise Lost, in addressing Beezlebub, Satan uses the wrong personal pronoun, presumably because such exalted personages prefer sonorous-sounding solecism to commonplace correctness.
I join Peter McKerrel (Letters, July 21) in congratulating Mr Miller, this time for his now-rare correct use of the gerund ("My raising the matter....") but I suppose that none of us are – sorry none (not one) of us is – consistently faultless. Is we?
Robin Dow, Rothesay.
Giving cause for concern
Further to Isobel McEwan's letter (July 23) about expressions used in schools: Having recently retired from secondary teaching, I was amazed up until the end of my career, to hear even English teachers speaking about "giving (someone) into trouble."
Is this appalling, ungrammatical expression confined solely to the west of Scotland?
M Carr, Glasgow.
Thanks for Ze answer
Thanks are due to H Shearer (Letters, July 23) for pointing out the existence of " ze" as a gender-neutral pronoun. My cornflakes taste better as I imagine the looks I may receive if daring to use the word in tomorrow's chat at the golf club.
"Ze" may, however, be popular in Scrabble, being worth, I believe, 11 points.
David Miller, Milngavie.
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