SIR — May I correct Cllr de Renzy Martin as quoted in your report "Switch to mayor mooted in Watchet" (Free Press May 17).

If she feels that the title "chairman" is sexist, as her quoted comments imply, she should refer to the definitions section of Watchet Town Council's standing orders (the rules under which the council operates), where she will find that where the masculine gender is used it also encompasses the feminine.

Her suggestion to change the title of chairman to mayor would have no impact whatsoever as the correct form of address for a mayor is "Mr Mayor", even when the holder of that office is female. It is the office being addressed, not the holder.

I am married to a former mayor of Somerset's only city and have seen the hilarity which this caused on a visit to Germany where our hosts insisted on referring to my wife as Frau Bergermeisterin (the correct German grammar for a female holder of their equivalent office).

My role, as the masculine half of the civic duo, was Mayor's Consort which, when translated into German and spelled with a K, implied the male equivalent of a mistress!

Modern political correctness should not be allowed to interfere with our wonderful, although sometimes arcane, language, and I, among others, never had a problem when a seating plan or list of guests cited me, erroneously, as being Mayoress of Wells!

Vincent Woods,

Cherry Tree Way,

Watchet.