If Gloria Kupchenko Frolick does not care for Wilma Riley's Pies, that's her right, but there's no use complaining about the reviewer who happens to discuss the book's plot line and characterizations. Wilma Riley and Coteau should be shamed into eating humble pie for serving up this perverse, tasteless, and unseemly concoction! Elena devises her revenge, which is to serve Mary a pie made with her own cow's manure." Not yet revolted? Wait! "In the end, a contrite Elena prays to the Holy Mother to swallow this pie of bovine faeces. Homel: "Citified Elena, quite German, hates her clodhopping neighbour Mary, who is very Ukrainian." 1, for one, would call that regressive and redneck writing! IT WAS with disbelief that I read David Homel's review of Wilma Riley's Pies ("Read It Yourself, Dad!," April). Retard the process? Linguistic change is not rust, it does not weaken the metal, it is not unattractive. Owens attitude toward language a bit misguided? He acknowledges in his letter (April) that meanings and usage change, but then states (incredibly) that "there's much to be said for retarding the process where we can." It is just this sort of reactionary prescriptiveness, this presumption that change is synonymous with deterioration and therefore should be inhibited, that is objectionable.
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