Mrs Veronica Plimsoll

Found dead at her writing-desk on the morning of 12th March 1996, with a half-completed letter to The Times before her. The letter concerned the modern use of "literally" as an intensifier, and broke off mid-sentence: "Sir, — I write again, knowing you will not print this letter, knowing you have not printed any of the seventeen which preceded it, knowing also that the matter is, on the evidence of your sub-editing, beyond your interest, and yet I write because the matter is not, and cannot be, beyond —" The letter was found, completed by another hand, and posted; The Times did not print it, but the editor is understood to have written privately to the family. The letter survives in the Society’s archive, where it is annually read aloud at the AGM, in full and to its abrupt conclusion.