Roger Whitlock wrote " Now, wasn't that just as easy as pie?" If you say so, Roger, but I would like more sugar in mine, please. And then he went on to say "I suspect that all of us use computers that have the multiplication sign handy." I still have not forgotten the day Jane McGary pointed out, in response to my then usage of the letter x, that the proper sign is the multiplication sign. I truly thought she was pulling my leg. I'm not sure what about this revelation floored me more, the fact that not only was Jane right, but that there are, on the one hand, people who think this sort of think is very important, and on the other hand, people who get paid to make these decisions. Hmmmm...I realize now that I made some faulty career choices. And anyway, in my heart of hearts I believe the symbol in question is the Greek letter chi, not a multiplication sign. The meaning is "cross" (as in "I crossed species A and species B), not "times" in the arithmetic sense. Whoever says "I timesed species A and species B"? Actually, in this modern computer world, x and × are different entities, unlike in the world of vision, where they seem the same. Some of my friends, who occasionally criticize me for my “species snobbery”, fail to realize that I grew up seeing the x before plant names and thought that meant “cross that one off the list”. Now I'm much more sophisticated and know that the × means "entering notholand". When I need it in windows, I make sure I’m in HTML mode, then click on Insert, Symbol, and the multiplication sign is there in the table of symbols. That’s the way I composed this message. I’ll convert to plain text now - and it's still there. Let's see if it makes it onto the posted form of this message. Jim McKenney