Judy exclaimed "What difference does it make ...." Well probably nothing, but that is true of much else being discussed in this forum. It is our chance to indulge a bit of Gemütlichkeit digression. The brief article on page 12 of this week's issue of TIME magazine, discusses chads, answering my question about the German expression. Apparently chad is referred to as Stanzabfall, or punch waste, by those confounded by the little devils in Germany. So we have a word more specific than Scherbe or Spreu and German computer specialist did not simply accept the American expression -- chad.