In the nick of time you cast your vote for Barack Obama (“It’s Time,” November 1, 2008), but you still used the opportunity to bewail one more time the mysterious disappearance of the real John McCain. Somehow, the self-proclaimed maverick ended up by trusting his presidential-campaign advisors way too much. Or so you would suggest. Now, a person who is independently minded or a non-conformist is often called a maverick, but the original meaning of the term is an unbranded range animal, especially a motherless calf. It is an Americanism after Samuel Maverick, a Nineteenth Century Texas pioneer, who left his calves unbranded. By convention, such a calf can be branded and thus appropriated by whoever finds it. One way or another, this meaning of the quaint term seems to capture the real John McCain pretty well. At least in your own interpretation of his poor performance.

Addendum (November 17, 2008)

This is the fourth letter to the mighty newspaper that has appeared this year and the fifteenth letter overall. I was quite surprised by it, too. When I came to Klaudio’s after my visit to the post office, where The Economist waited for me in my mailbox, I showed the letter to everyone present. Demonstratively pointing at “Motovun, Croatia” under my name, I kept explaining that there is no better weekly in the whole world. As always when a letter of mine gets published, there were smiles all around. The only problem was that I had hard time explaining what this one was actually about. My English is way beyond that of my friends in town. For better or worse, it is way beyond my Croatian, as well.