As most of you know, I have been pretty much on the side of ignoring variants that didn't seem to make any logical sense in terms of phonetics or anything else. And I suppose I've been something of a hard case on the matter. Something to muse on: my son has recently moved from Atlanta to Louisville and I was at his house for dinner last night. As I sat in his den and ran my eyes over the ends of eight identically sized (unpacked) moving boxes all with his name printed in magic marker, slowly sipping my glass of whatever, what to my wondering eyes should appear but the surname on each, reading: Boythress Boythess Poyimz Poythess Boythres Poythess Poythe Boyther....... These guys had 8 shots and missed them all. I copied them all down and came belatedly to questionable wisdom: First, is it likely that the "casual" day laborer of colonial times was any more or less literate than the casual day laborer of our time. Gee, who knows? Well, yes, I suppose he or she in colonial times should be less literate because after all, we do have some form of modern universal education system in place now that was NOT in place in colonial times. And in addition, the colonial system was likely structured to "accomodate" a lot of people who couldn't read (which was the vast majority of them) and hence, the paid "clerks" did all the reading and writing. So should one expect a ridiculous number of variants in spelling in colonial times? Probably not.....if those guys actually hired out as being "able to write." So, if today's movers presumably have the benefit of public education what does this say about present day public education? Or does it say anything? Or does it help to make the argument for school vouchers to leverage the bad schools out of business? As Diana says, I do have a way of rationalizing myself to what was a preheld notion anyway. For all I know, these guys just didn't give a hoot about spelling; after all, the eight boxes all got to the correct destination, didn't they? So do they have some obligation to conform to my idea of literacy? Nah. No way. In any case, I will be reluctant to reject just about anything that is submitted to as a "variant spelling" in the future. <g> Maynard