Among the style manuals that reside on my bookshelves are Webster's. the Chicago, the New York Times, and several others. One of my favorites is both a style manual and an excellent guide for editing and revising entitled Getting the Words Right (the title comes from a remark of Ernest Hemingway, who, when asked why he had rewritten the last chapter of one of his books twenty-nine times, said, "I was just trying to get the words right!"). And, of course, Strunk and White's The Elements of Style.

I have been writing all my life (honorable mention in the Atlantic Monthly high school short story writers'* contest), and so far, I have been paid for about thirty magazine articles. In addition, I have worked as an editor, and as a news director and copy writer for a network affiliated radio station.

You've written enough here, GfS, that finding examples of grammatical errors and incorrect word usage would be no sport at all. Like shooting fish in a barrel. So much for your attempts to denigrate others by claiming to have had a superior education. However, lest you lapse into despair, let me reassure you that there are others here who are even sloppier than you are. Your confusion of "they're" and "their" is a common boo-boo.

Now—I have asked this question several times on this thread, and I have yet to receive any kind of answer:

How does the fact that David and Steven are married affect, in any way whatsoever, Barbara's and my marriage?

Well?

I'm waiting. . . .

Don Firth

*To preempt any attempts to cast aspersions on my punctuation, in the possessive of a plural, the apostrophe goes to the right of the "s."