Simultaneous "Hee hee" and "My dinkum heavens!", which shows I'm so startled I'm getting my interjections mixed up. Yes, that's almost certainly me. I'm not sure I remember it... Yes, it comes back now. That would be the use in the software industry (Dragon Systems, Inc., 1990-2001, R.I.P. I was the company linguist) for a bug that must be fixed before the product can go out the door. Yes, that's me all right. I'd plum forgotten. -- Dr. Whom, Consulting Linguist, Grammarian, Orthoepist, and Philological Busybody a.k.a. Mark A. Mandel On Mon, 19 May 2003, M J wrote: # #And I thought that he was pretty darn cool. # #See, I'm connected to Mark via five degrees of separation! (... #Oh, all right; you can do it with one, too. "We are both fans of #Steve Brust and his writingses.") # #1) My uncle Steve once tended bar at a country club in Hawai'i. #2) He poured (several very large) shots of whiskey for then-Veep #Spiro T. Agnew during a golf tournament at said country club. #(After the fourth shot, Uncle Steve says, Agnew hit a ball directly #into the crowd, mildly bruising someone. Woo.) #3) Ted Agnew was half of the Conservative Bill & Ted, the other #half of which was Bill "William" Safire, esquire. #4) William Safire writes a column hight "On Language" for the _New #York Times_. #5. Dr. Mark A. Mandel is cited in Safire's book _Let A Simile Be #Your Umbrella_, page 89 hardback edition. He wrote a letter #informing dear Mr. Safire of another use of the term "show- #stopper". # #YAY MARK! # #¬ #MJ, #assuming she has the _correct_ Dr. Mark A. Mandel # # #