Geez, Kat, I'd forgotten all about that deathless passage! How good to read it again. The "forfend" that I use in it was a deliberately concocted word with an entirely different purpose than when saying "heaven forfend". I meant it to mean "subsist" in that context. Matter of fact, I thought at the time that it was a completely made-up word that I had invented on the spot.

I quote that glorious passage again:

"Avaunt, wretches, knaves, and cutpurses!!! Ye quailing, gibbering, chuckleheaded scoundrels, ye should be cast into the pit of Hades, there to forfend on carrion and the leavings of Hell's demon urchins! Ye darkling imps, sons of perdition and ravagers of the innocent heath, may ye perish and succumb to the wrath of the valorous and true. May the wolves gnaw upon your codpieces! May pernicious vermin consume thy raiment from off thy poxy frames, exposing thee to the inclemency of the pitiless elements on some barren and nameless shore of disaster! Thou villainous, onion-eyed, barrel-bellied swine! Begone! And take thy vile humours with thee when thither thou goest!"

God, I love that. Such a useful diatribe. One can just pull it out of the hat for use on so many occasions...

I was really in a different mood back in '02. ;-)