Passionate style counsel

Felipe Fernández-Armesto is annoyed by students’ ignorance of their own language (“Irrevocably tongue-tied”, Opinion, 22 May): they submit essays riddled with repetition, clichés, jargon and the horrors of syntactical disfigurement. He would like to see – across disciplines – “clarity, concision and accuracy in the use of English”.

But if students are to write precisely with a “love of language”, don’t they need to find some topic related to their university subject about which they care greatly? I guess the lucky ones fall head over heels with almost everything on the syllabus.

Neil Richardson
Kirkheaton, West Yorkshire