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The French hardly need to worry about the "threat posed to French language and French culture by the Anglo-Saxon menace" noted in your caption (THES, October 28): the Anglo-Saxons have not been around for more than 900 years.

The xenophobic might even note that the increasingly frequent use of "Anglo-Saxon" to refer to the contemporary English-speaking world is a Gallicism which suggests that the French are getting their linguistic own back.

JUDITH JESCH Department of English studies University of Nottingham.