DearRainer,

I must say that your English is excellent, if you feel a but coming I do apologise, but when someone is so near perfect at English as you, there is this little voice in my head that shouts out when you make the very occasional error, or perhaps miss the nuance of what is said by taking things too literally. e.g like herding cats - I am really not sure which one of us has missed the point here, but maybe just may be, you have not previously heard this infrequently used euphamism for having to deal with a very disparate and difficult group.

What to do?

Without PMs we have lost more the use of a more personal informal way to thank, help, be rude to, make friends with, disagree vehermently with, etc.. other posters.

But, there it is again, knowing how the German character enjoys accuracy since I have had a German pen pal since the early sixties who as an English teacher, rings me occasionally to find out how we say something in Englisn, just really simply dealing with those curious common English usage issues.

Being mildly dislexic and scatter brained,I rely on others to spot errors and rather appreciate the red ink correction approach as a learning tool. Whilst I would certainly not rely on me for language advice Mrs Sula is an expert who helps many foreign children arriving here to learn English when its not their first language. You have my E Mail I believe, so if ever you wish to deal with this sort of problem, I have two amazing experts in my brother DNWL and my Mehmsahib to advise above and beyond my limited skills. Do contact me by E Mail and let me know if you want me to point out when there are the odd glitches for educational purposes of if you would like a native english speaker to cast an eye over as a sub editor any of your drafts in English before publishing what is otherwise consistantly excellent materiel you produce.

Truelly, I am not nit picking just wanting to be helpful. Otherwise ignore this and put it in file 13.

Sula