Hi & welcome, George!  Recently you wrote in a message to Ardith Hinton:

GP>  "Webster's" is now a public domain name!


          Yes.  Some "Webster's" dictionaries are very good...
others are not. We finally broke down & bought RANDOM HOUSE WEBSTER'S a
year or so ago because that's where the library kept finding words I
couldn't find elsewhere....  :-)



AH>  Seriously, I think you meant "cheap" as in "a
AH>  cheap trick"....  ;-)

GP>  Which, of course refers to negotiations with a
GP>  $10.00 crack ho!


          Hence the wink.  I figured James would know that meaning of the
term because he's a professional musician.  Musicians often have to perform
in some rather seedy dives to make ends meet.  Dallas did, anyway....  :-)



AH>  ... but the singular is easier to handle because you
AH>  don't have to remember to change the "-y" to "-ies".

GP>  I'm sure no dictionary spells the plural of secretary
GP>  without the "ies" thing!


          Uh-huh.  We'd been talking earlier about where to put the
apostrophe in various words, so I was trying to avoid unnecessary
complications....  :-))



GP>  Mom was understandably shocked, but decided to remain calm
GP>  and get all the evidence together before going ballistic
GP>  on the school, so she asks, "And what did they teach you?"

GP>  The little girl proudly answered, "Change the Y to an I
GP>  and add ES"

GP>  Patience protects mom from embarrassment yet again! *G*


          There's an example of how a person might make a snap judgement,
then take a deep breath & collect further information before going off
half cocked. Seems to me it's quite an important lesson, not just for
Mommies... [chuckle].




--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+