Pete M: I now know that BIOS is an acronym. I wondered what the discussion was all about. Miss a small point and miss the whole point, I suppose. As an acronym it cetainly doesn't get an apostrophe unless one can have a BIOS that possesses something. By the way, I don't want to know what a BIOS is. I was an assembly language and Fortran programmer for years but that was years ago. When they came out with Ada I rebelled. I have never written a line of C++ and I am none the worse for it. Your question for Computer science graduates about language and your desire for the answer "English" is perfect. Language is the most noble artifact that God has allowed man to create, and the English language is the greatest language of all. We need to talk to computers in English. What we need to do especially is to get rid of all that silly punctuation, symbols and misspelled words. At least Fortran was "like" what it was, a "formula" language. I am glad I can concentrate on English now. You contributors who put in some of those "hard words" really please me. I get to look them up and learn something in my old age. _Philip Hudson