Notes & Asides.(dolichocephaly)(Brief Article)

Dear Mr. Buckley: Much as I dislike beating dead horses, may I respectfully submit that when it comes to the word dolichocephaly, you still don't get it.

In your Dec. 4 response to my letter, you quoted your Heritage dictionary as follows: ". . . dolichocephalous . . . having a relatively long head with a cephalic index below 76." Both Dr. Springer's (Dec. 18) and my point was that long does not refer to the vertical length of the head (I trust that we can all agree on the meaning of vertical), as you maintain, but to the front-to-back length, or, to be technical, the antero-posterior diameter.

Perhaps we could settle this by agreeing to accept Humpty Dumpty's dictum: "When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean-neither more nor less." Or, maybe more to the point, "The question is, which is to be master-that's all."

Pedantically yours, Russell McFadden West Columbia, Tex.

Dear Mr. Buckley: My Random House says that dolichocephaly has to do with the ratio of the breadth of the head to the length of the head-from front to back. It appears that you were correct and your dictionary at fault in not describing the basis of the word length used in the definition. This is noted most respectfully, as I do not mean to be nitpicking, but am honored to clear this up for our greatest literate American. Boola-Boola from a City College of New York graduate of 1953.

Cordially, Alfred Pramaggiore Dayton, Ohio

Dear Mr. Buckley: Good manners prevented me from writing before this, but now that you have spurned the advice of two well-intentioned correspondents, I must risk churlishness and state the obvious: You have misinterpreted the definition of dolichocephalic. Who at Heritage said that long means vertically long? As evidence to the dogmatic, I offer the fact that if the cephalic ...