[Urbane Guerrilla]

All in all, I end up agreeing with V here. I've been asked before to dumb it down, and have firmly turned down every such request as ill advised, and shall always. If I write the English of an educated man, where's the downside in someone reading like one?

Requests to be as stupid as someone else thinks they need me to be I deny as a matter of course. Some people are lame enough to think this arrogant.

Well, that's enough with the splenetics.

Back at an older part of the thread, I was taught "offen" by simply everyone, parents and teachers alike. Pronouncing the T, while accepted by Webster's 3rd among others, seems to me unnecessarily affected. Affectation is usually unnecessary, come to that. Half-brights, I say, and I say it with confidence, DanaC. I expect I shall continue to twit you from time to time over your fits of notwithitness -- do recall which of us is the socialist at our age, and which of us is not. You aren't the one to shake me, try though you may.