Wherever pre-primary children first learn the word “trash”, when they use it themselves they are using Shakespearean language rather than an Americanism (Some children starting school ‘unable to climb staircase’, finds England and Wales teacher survey, 30 January). Recently it could be heard on stage nightly at London’s Theatre Royal Drury Lane, in The Tempest, when Caliban says: “Let it alone thou fool, it is but trash,” as he tries to discourage the jester Trinculo from trying on gaudy clothes put there to distract them (except when the production was disrupted by Just Stop Oil protesters, as reported in the Guardian).
Mark Lewinski-Grende
Swaffham Prior, Cambridgeshire
• Schools are right to worry about glaring gaps in the social skills that too many children bring to reception classes. But as for Americanisms, “fall” was once the common English word for autumn. “Trash” finds mention in Shakespeare, and presumably was part of the baggage of early colonists. And the export continues – “bit” (as in “do your bit”) from George Bernard Shaw and “early days” from Sir Thomas More. I mean, for goodness sake (Shakespeare, Henry VIII).
Austen Lynch
Garstang, Lancashire
