A LETTER FROM THE PUBLISHER

Dear Time-Reader

On page 7 of this issue you will find a two-column cut of the Cerebro-Optical Dynamagon Chonphuser. This formidable instrument is Reader Brysselbout's elaborate answer to the Nofer Trunnions story our Science Editor tucked away at the end of his section in the April 15th issue of TIME.

In reprinting excerpts from Arthur D. Little, Inc.'s parody of the language chemists and engineers use, some of you have suggested that our Science Editor was hoodwinked into thinking he was making scientific sense. Not so. He was merely giving wider circulation to the engineering firm's kidding the mumbo -jumbo language in which too many scientific treatises are written. He was also, by implication, making a plea for a simpler, clearer use of the King's or any other English.

It is his job, of course--as it is the job of every editor of TIME--to cull the significant developments in his field each week and communicate them to you in vivid, understandable English. That is probably harder to do in Science than in any other department of TIME.

If the sackful of mail we have received from you is any indication, the story of "The Turbo-Encabulator in Industry" struck many a responsive chord. Aside from those of you who wanted to be reassured that TIME hadn't been taken in, we received the customary complaints about using too much technical jargon for the layman, observations such as "My husband says it sounds like a new motor; I say it sounds like a dictionary that has been struck by lightning"; suggestions that it "might have come out of the mouth of Danny Kaye," and plaintive queries like: "Is this good?" Wrote one bemused U.S. Navyman: "It'sh poshible."

To some the turbo-encabulator sounded as though it would be a "wonderful machine for changing baby's diapers." A reader from Hoboken assumed that it would be on sale soon in Manhattan department stores. Many of you wrote in to thank us for illuminating what you have long wanted to tell your scientist friends.

Nobody seemed happier about the story than the engineers & scientists, of whom about a hundred thousand read TIME. They sent in any number of blueprints and plans of machines of their own invention, including one from an American Telephone & Telegraph Co. engineer which was called "the No. 2-B Regrettor (assumes a perpetually pessimistic attitude)."

The engineers' & scientists' applause included a good many amateur and professional attempts at parody of their own professional language. Wrote some technicians stationed at the U.S. Army Air Corps' experimental station at Wright Field, Ohio: ". . . Now that the lid is off, we would like your readers to know that since 1944 no Army plane has taken off without a midget encabulator securely latchetted to the semi-radical baltrop of its estrangulated wickerbill. . . ."

Our Science Editor feels better now--especially over this fresh evidence of the readership his section has--although he is somewhat perplexed by the reader from Bartlesville, Oklahoma, who took him to task for once again falling for "that Communist propaganda."

Cordially,

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