Dr. Kryter's arguments and proposals are good in principle but faulty in detail. Confusion could have been avoided by a clear separation of the concept ofimpairment(any change for the worse in structure or function) fromhandicap(a loss of efficiency in social communication). The AAOO rule deals with handicap, not impairment. Also its “high fence” recognizes that “everyday speech” is not only speech at 65 dB SPL but includes some speech that is much louder. The AAOO rule was deliberately simplified to promote its use. The “Social Adequacy Index for Hearing” of 1948 is valid in prinicple but is numerically inaccurate because of poor enunciation of the recorded test material that was employed. For predicting handicap in speech communication the hearing threshold level at 2000 Hz is critical. More studies of speech discrimination in subjects who have typical noise‐induced hearing loss involving this frequency are badly needed.