I WOULD like to correct an error I made in my answer to Nasir (MOE, Jan 20) regarding the word talentless. In answer to his question, “If an artist possesses no talent, is he talent-free or talentless?”, I answered that “he is untalented”, which is not wrong. But my statement that “the word talentless does exist in the OED, but its last recorded use was in 1898” implied that the word talentless is no longer in common use. This is wrong. A native English speaker pointed out to me that the word is in fact commonly used in England now.

My subsequent search of the Internet confirmed the frequent occurrence of the word in various websites in the UK and also elsewhere. Here are two examples of its use long after 1898!

“Yet the notion of creative writing in a group setting has been held in deep suspicion, ridiculed by “real” writers as an activity for deluded, talentless people, an embarrassment to those who strive to produce glittering works painstakingly and in solitude.” (The Independent, Feb 4, 1996)

“Ms Gardner was neither heartless nor talentless, however, and she remained true to her no-nonsense Californian roots as her career took off in the late 40s and early 50s. (From the obituary of famed Hollywood Actress, Ava Gardner, Jan 25, 1990)

Let me also include an example of the use of the word “untalented”, which has the same meaning as “talentless”:

“I was interested in the idea of celebrity ... some very untalented people getting very successful and making a lot of money for not a lot of work, sometimes ...” (David Thewlis, quoted in telegraph.co.uk, Aug 25, 2007) – Fadzilah Amin

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