To the Editor of the "NonrH-CHmwA Dany NEWS"
Sm,—In today's "North-China Daily News" inthe article entitled "On Duty, Union Jack Badges, appears an error of wording which you m: not have noticed and may be i terested in correcting. In the i troductory paragraph appears an attempt at a Scottish proverb which as it is given is nonsense; "Many a mickle makes a muckle." The following from Fowler's Modern English Usage (page 354) gives the explana-Son of the error and the correct version.
Mickle and muckle are merely variants of the same word, and the not uncumon version "Many a mickle makes a muckle" is a blunder; the right forms are "Many a little (or Many a pickle) makes a mickle (or muckle)" with other slight variations, The etymological record in Fowler's Concise Oxford Dictionary p.719. under "mickle" states that aspect of this doubly-spelled word in a clear manner.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.