The suggestion from Warren Feakes (Letters, March 29) that the bogan-like British ''chav'' is an acronym from ''Council House and Violence'' is, like many etymologies based on acronyms, questionable.
Pom is not an acronym from ''Prisoner of Mother England'', posh is not from ''port outward, starboard home'', and wog is not from ''western (or wily) oriental gentleman''.
While the origin is not certain, the latest Oxford English Dictionary evidence suggests that chav is from Romani ''chavo'' meaning ''unmarried Romani male'' or a shortening of the related British Romani word ''chavvy'' meaning ''child''.
Romani is the language of the Rom or gypsies, and therefore the British chav no doubt is based on assumptions about class and race. Some have claimed that chav is a shortening of the name of the town Chatham in Kent, but this probably belongs in the ''after the event'' box, along with the acronym.
Bruce Moore, Isabella Plains
Memorial thoughts
I have been saddened by recent letters concerning the memorial to those who have died as the result of workplace accidents or from diseases contracted through their work.
I, too, like to walk around the lake, but unlike Ann Burden (Letters, March 27) and others, I was delighted to read of the proposed memorial.
Perhaps if they were to witness the result of such illness they, too, would be grateful to see the memorial built.
A ''grandiose memorial'' - I think not. A memorial to those like my brother who died because of their work environment is a memorial of which we should all be proud.
Kerry Cambridge, Bruce
Payment problems
Mary Bray (Letters, March 23) draws attention to an overbearing attempt by a company to get her to conform to their preferred method of extracting payments from her account.
The increasing refusal of firms to accept cheques (even when identity is established) is a similar phenomenon, of great inconvenience to many older people who are reluctant to carry cash.
If legislation does not already do so, it should require that businesses offering or refusing a particular kind of electronic funds transfer must also accept cash or cheques, with no extra ''chiselling'' fees involved by them or their bank. Security problems would be no greater than for post offices.
P. Edwards, Holder
Climate claims
The CSIRO/BOM State of the Climate report is embarrassing. The report claims that 50 per cent of CO2 emissions stay in the atmosphere. But for how long? The IPCC says 50 to 100 years with no evidence. The only studies done show it is only five to seven years.
The report has a graph showing an increase in atmospheric CO2 since industrialisation. But that ignores CO2 records since 1821 that show CO2 levels that fluctuate, with the highest level in 1942. The best howler is the claim that ocean acidity has increased by 30 per cent. There is no such evidence, only conjecture and ''modelling''. Warmists are becoming more strident as their ideology collapses around them.
Brian Hatch, Narrabundah
Address substance
Robert Willson (Letters, March 29) continues to focus on shortcomings in my written expression; my crimes include emotive phrases, hypothetical examples, quoting selectively and bellowing and shouting. If only Willson could descend from the realm of literary sensibility, and address the substance of my accusation, to wit: thrice, he has borne false testimony against Richard Dawkins. If he wants to identify a famous person whose disbelief wavered, then Malcolm Muggeridge might fit the bill; if claims of infallibility are Willson's beef, then his targets could include Pope Pius XII; he can choose from millions of creationists - Christian, Muslim or whatever - for someone untroubled by religious fundamentalism; but he can't point an honest finger at Dawkins for any of these traits.
Willson may think he is fighting the good fight for religious faith; but peppering these pages with ridiculous falsehoods would suggest otherwise.
Peter Robinson, Ainslie
Housing debate
The ill-considered proposals regarding public housing put up by the ACT government (''High on the hog in public housing'', March 15, p1) have been effectively dealt with by your correspondents, particularly by H. Merritt, on March 16. On the same page, on the same day, your editorial confuses public housing with welfare housing. H. Merritt's common sense is in contrast to your tangential ''Those individuals or families most deserving of public welfare are the neediest''. Public housing is not just about housing the disadvantaged. There are various social and economic grounds for governments having a stock of dwellings of different sizes and types spread throughout the community.
For example, in our present circumstances, there are labour shortages in different parts of Australia. Skilled people won't move because there is no housing available where those skills are needed. This applies in many fields, whether they be construction workers or senior executives. Some people appointed to jobs in Canberrra choose to commute from Sydney rather than move to a city with a limited choice of suitable accommodation. The fly-in-fly-out phenomenon is not exclusive to mining works. It is to the country's economic advantage to have labour mobility. This writer moved across Australia several times when public housing was offered to attract my talents. That's how Canberra coped with the influx of workers in the Fifties and Sixties.
Roslyn Dundas, of ACTCOSS, quoted by your writer on March 15, made a good case for the social advantages of public housing. Let's keep the stigma of ''welfare'' out of the debate. If we need to shelter the disadvantaged, we can do that within a public housing program, or we can develop a process to take in the different requirements of the less fortunate, be they mentally ill or indigent.
Brian McNamara, Lyneham