Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

The Republican nominee for POTUS, Mr. Romney, has been introducing himself to voters by his middle name, but will that be the name on his line in the ballot next November? Not if he has to fill out a printed three-by-five card like those we use for everything else, with space for a first name in full and a box for a middle initial. No matter what family and friends may call us, in any officially printed context, the three-by-five formula prevails.

Why try to fight it, to be in the middle-namer minority? Ask the fictional J. Alfred Prufrock or J. Cheever Loophole, or their creators. Or F. Scott Fitzgerald. In Washington, was the J. Edgar Hoover for whom the FBI building was named more a threat to crime than the John E. Hoover probably listed in a file in its basement?

“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” but a candidate wants the name that will sound sweetest to voters. To Americans, Willard has a slightly more familiar ring than the foreign-sounding Barack, but in middle names a fingerless glove far outranks a Muslim saint. On name sounds, Mr. Romney appears to have the advantage, but it will be lost unless voters read their ballots aloud.

W.R. Deeble, West Tisbury