Paul,<br><br>I absolutely echo your reaction to &quot;mere&quot;!<br><br>The sentence in question was written as part of a description of my student's pet bulldog.<br><br>John<br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 3/13/06, 
<b class="gmail_sendername">Paul E. Doniger</b> &lt;<a href="mailto:[log in to unmask]"><a href="/SCRIPTS/WA.EXE?LOGON=A3%3Dind0603%26L%3DATEG%26E%3Dquoted-printable%26P%3D375177%26B%3D------%253D_Part_9765_17307242.1142326701083%26T%3Dtext%252Fhtml%3B%2520charset%3DISO-8859-1%26pending%3D" target="_parent" >[log in to unmask]</a></a>&gt; wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div style="direction: ltr;"><div>Cynthia,</div>  <div>&nbsp;</div>  <div>As a fellow HS English (and drama) teacher, I refuse to be &quot;mere&quot; and hope you will hold such a high opinion of yourself, too. We are a breed who have to be able to read a billion pages of student writing every month (more or less) and help all the writers of those pages make them better. I think there is nothing &quot;mere&quot; about that daunting task -- and that's only ONE of our required tasks.
</div>  <div>&nbsp;</div>  <div>Proudly,</div>  <div>&nbsp;</div>  <div>Paul D.</div>  <div>&nbsp;</div>  <div>P.S. I agree with your approach to this weird and interesting sentence.</div>  <div>P.P.S. I think the sentence is describing what is called a &quot;burnside.&quot; It's a mutton-chop/moustache combination like that sported by General Ambrose Burnside of the Civil War era. Does anyone know if that's it?
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