On Thu, 15 Aug 2002, Steven Brust wrote: #<Assuming a back-to-back stance with DDB as, together and alone, we prepare #to fight off the ravaging hoards, ready to die bravely with Strunk & White #in our hand and a pronoun in our mouth.> A tall, lean, pedantic chap -- with unruly light-colored hair, a great many pockets overflowing with markers, pens, and slips of paper, and a striped scarf that brushes the floor at both ends -- appears next to Steve, snatches the Strunk & White from his hand, and slaps the back of his wrist with it. "'Hordes', not 'hoards'! Or are you under attack by heaps of hidden goods?" -- Dr. Whom, Consulting Linguist, Grammarian, Orthoepist, and Philological Busybody ;-) a.k.a. Mark A. Mandel