Right to Reply

The National Newspaper of South East Wales have been at it again and given top billing to this piece of wordsmithery from Dennis Coughlin of Cardiff. I have replied but knowing them, knowing me, they wont publish it but I demand my right to reply.

Tesco silent on Welsh language decision

As a regular to the Tesco Extra store on Western Avenue, Cardiff, I could not help but notice the aisle signage throughout the store. I am aware that the English and Welsh language should have equal status but not in Tesco, apparently.The Welsh language not only gets top billing but the font is twice the size of the English and is bold. I have no doubt that at any given time only a handful of Welsh speakers would be in the store and, based on most of the Welsh speakers I’ve met, they wouldn’t give a monkey’s which language the signage is in.So why does Tesco choose to make English less clear to the vast majority of their confused, poor- sighted, and elderly customers? It’s to be expected in the public sector, where it’s becoming more difficult to get employment if you don’t speak Welsh, but in the private sector equal opportunity and non discrimination is of paramount importance for established and respected companies.I did write to the manager but didn’t get a reply, although the logic behind the decision belonged to someone more senior. Is Tesco currying favour with the Welsh Government for some reason? Someone in authority at Tesco has made the decision to positively discriminate in favour of the Welsh language, to the detriment of most of their customers, and we should know why. 
Dennis Coughlin Cardiff

In reply to Mr Dennis Coughlin's diatribe against the Welsh Language 8/1/2018, unlike his beloved English Language in Tesco Western Avenue, he gets top billing in the letters page of the National Newspaper of  Wales. To use the vernacular Mr Coughlin 'Tesco are no mugs'. Even though the Welsh Speakers you 'claim' to have met 'allegedly' wouldn't give a monkey's which language the signage is in, Tesco KNOW that the language is very dear and important to those who speak it and also KNOW that the Welsh Speakers in Cardiff generally have more money to spend than the confused, poor sighted and elderly customers of which he claims to be one. I have also written to the manager commending him in big and bold type for his decision to give equal billing to Wales' first and indigenous language, after all Mr Coughlin, Welsh was spoken across the continent of Europe before English was even a scream in the forests of Germany.

The Shark Fisherman of Wales

Grangetown