Here is our Letter to the Editor, as submitted. If you compare it to the final published version, you will notice that the Editor unfortunately removed the final crucial pun involving the 'Chk' gene!

Date: Thu, 18 Dec 1997 12:04:18 -0500 (EST)
From: "Daniel E. Weeks" 
To: corres@nature.com
Subject: Correspondence re Puente et al. 

Dear Nature Editor,

We would like to submit the short letter below for consideration for
publication in the Correspondence section of Nature.  We hope that you
will agree that it is an appropriately humorous follow-up to the recent
correspondence by Puente et al.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,
  -- Daniel E. Weeks --

--------------------
Nomenclature and linguistic diversity

Sir - Puente et al. [1] recently complained about the large number of gene
and protein names that have unclear (or offensive) pronunciations because
they lack vowels.  This is a tunnel-tongued complaint, as there are many
beautiful languages that use vowels much less profligately than English;
in these languages, such indeterminate names may have a single
pronunciation.  Indeed, in Czech the name Lck, which is the main example
of Puente et al [1], has a single definitive pronunciation yet no meaning
(denigrating or otherwise).  We propose that the nomenclature committees
embrace the richness of human linguistic diversity by indicating which
language should be used to pronounce each gene and protein name.  As a
first step in that direction, we propose that Srk, Mls, and Prs be given
their conventional Chk pronunciations.  We prefer linguistic liberation to
their acronym anarchy. 

Daniel E. Weeks and Jeffrey R. O'Connell
Department of Human Genetics
University of Pittsburgh
A310 Crabtree Hall
130 DeSoto Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15261
e-mail: dweeks@watson.hgen.pitt.edu

Zora Schmidtova
Lukesova 30
Praha 4
Czech Republic
____________________
 1.	Puente, L., Edmonds, S. & Arendt, C. Nature 390, 329 (1997).