Dear Editor,

In your last issue, the subject of “ad personam” attacks was raised in a letter to the editor, and then the phrase was repeated twice in an editorial.

“Ad hominem”, a Latin phrase meaning “towards the man”, is the concept you are grasping for. And man includes woman in this sense as homo is the generic name for our species, in which of course there are two sexes.

An “ad hominem” attack is one which carries little or no weight in a courtroom or parliament because it ignores the issue and attacks the person. However personam is simply not the right word. It is neither English, French nor Latin.

Thank you for the vigorous debate in your newspaper. I look forward to each issue.