Rhub said, inter alia: I also remember quaking in my shoes when hearing, at the age of nine, that I was going up into Miss Treweek's class -she had a reputation as a Dragon of the first order. I soon found that she was an excellent teacher who rewarded effort just as surely as she punished slackness and grew to love her dearly. (Hers is the only name that I remember from my primary school days, which says something - even if only about my memory) It was her teaching that gave me reasonably good spelling and an instinctive grasp of correct grammar.

Yes, I had one of those, Mrs Taylor. But it was the times tables which were my bete noir and the cause of her (assumed) displeasure. As with you, my hat is off to her even now. A good teacher was a thing to be treasured!

Incidentally, our resident SC AEnigma has "bete noir" as "beetle noise". Could this be a legitimate synonym?


The idiot also known as Capfka ...