More on Gaffa and the like....

["Liz Owens, Microcomputer Product Center, 491-3889"<BABOOSHKA@nuacc.acns.nwu.edu>]

	Fellas, fellas, fellas--this is *not* a boxing ring.  I get
the feeling that Doug (forgive me, I'm using a Mac and can't figure
out how you get the first part of your foofy "D") and IED are drawing
blood here.  That is not why we are here, kids.

        Let Auntie Lizooshka share a little story with you. How many
of you have read _A_Farewell_to_Arms_? Ok, you can put your hands down
now. Anyone who has read this book can see that every time something
horrible happens, it is raining.  Now, a good interpreter would say
that rain is a symbol of death or sorrow or something of the like.
But--when someone asked Hemingway about it, apparently to get the
straight dope, he replied, "It just meant that it rained, dammit!!"
Now, we can all learn from this that what the author says about a
work, especially a symbolic one, cannot be taken at sheer face value
because of the way a work is open to the views of many minds.  OK? So
maybe Gaffa means gaffer's tape. Kate said so, right? Well, according
to a friend of mine whose knowledge of Auntie Kate would put most of
you to shame, she *also* said that it meant "an error in discression,"
which is a meaning she got from the OED. (He says she discusses this
on a picture disk which has her in a red dress with a bass.)

        OK? Ok.
        I feel much better.

        IED, if you keep sending me such fulsome compliments, I may
ask you to bear my children.  You turn my head.

        Hoping for a Tour of Life II, I remain, your faithful
correspondant,

Lizooshka