Query from Reader posted 21st April 2008

I have absolutely no idea if this notion is original or useful or plausible, or who could properly evaluate it. So I send it to you to show it around your organization as you see fit and perhaps someone will be kind enough to reply to me.

There seems to be a number of theories about the origins of the term Yahoos to describe the humans in book four of Gulliver's Travels. Prof. Paul Turner devotes nearly a page to this in his notes to the Oxford World Classics edition of GT.

The OED shows that, for about 40 years before the publication of GT, a popular term for jockeys, cabmen, and others who rode or drove horses at a fast pace was "Jehu" - apparently inspired by a reference in the Hebrew Bible, Second Kings 9:20. But the Hebrew language lacks a J sound, so the name would be pronounced like "Yehu". Dean Swift would know this, and called his humans Yahoos to indicate that the humans who abused horses were less intelligent and civilizes than the horses themselves.

Bernard J. Sussman, Maryland USA

Satirical Submission

TO: Letters, The Guardian 14 November 2004
A MODEST PROPOSAL

Dear Sir,

The current battle raging around the city of Fajullah is indeed most
regrettable and no-one laments the consequent loss of life more than yours truly. But it seems to me that beyond the wastage of life lies a perhaps still greater tragedy, viz. the wastage of perfectly good human organs that could be used to save lives in another context.

I hear that an increasing number of US citizens now suffer from potentially life-threatening obesity and will therefore presumably soon require heart transplant surgery in order to survive. I hear also of an unprecedented upsurge in alcohol abuse amongst college students and can only assume that not too far in the future demand for new livers will reach a corresponding peak.

Given that at least 1000 insurgents have been killed in Fajullah in the last week or so, would it not be possible to have on hand an organ retrieval team which could retrieve the hearts and livers of these unfortunate people for whom in any case nothing more can be done (either by the propaganda teams or the medics). They are after all Muslims and therefore their livers are presumably in excellent shape. Many of the most hardened insurgents, moreover, are apparently children and so their hearts will have suffered a minimum amount of ordinary wear and tear.

In order to deflect the protests of sentimentalists I suggest that the organ retrival squad should be organized and paid for by the United Nations (although presumably remaining under the US Supreme Command). This United Nations Organ Retrieval Squad (or UNORG) could arrange for fleets of refrigerated ambulances to wait outside Fajullah or other siege sites from where the organs could be sorted, graded, and flown at high speed to the recipient transplant centers.

A proportion of the organs harvested might go to other destinations than the USA although, needless to say, only those countries who have supported President Bush's "Operation Iraqi Freedom" would be entitled to a share. Clearly the largest third party beneficiary would thus be the United Kingdom. We might even put in a special order for brains.

Ben Thompson