Ron: Did you mean "What gnu??????" or "What, gnu??????"?

Just teasin... I find that the sentence written without the use of the word "the" is much more to the point.

Of course, one cannot delete use of "the" completely. His objective was to make us think about each clause and the whole composition by focusing on the most common word in our language.

Next exercise was to delete the use of the word "that", for example, "I find the sentence written without the use of the word "the" is much more to the point." An engineering professor he was.

BTW, did anyone answer my question about "try and do" or did I just miss the answer?