Kevin

  We started our careers as High School English Teachers at HVC in the early 60's so we had lots of conversations, disagreements, and discussions. This is but one, minor, but it sticks in my memory:

    The setting is the Faculty Room, and he is discoursing on students' inability to learn a simple thing about word usage---when to use "affect" and when to use "effect."   

 "All  they need to remember," he said, "is that affect is always a verb and effect is a noun."  I ventured to say that was incorrect, usually true, but not always, that each word can be both noun or verb.

  Disagreeing, he went to the ultimate source in those times, to the copy of Webster's Dictionary which was on the shelf of the Faculty Room, and served as the authority on all such disputes.

   He opened the dictionary, searched through it silently, while those who were party to the issue sat silently, awaiting the results. After a short time, he closed the book, placed it back on the shelf, and uttered a single word, GODDAMIT. He then went back to his seat. Nothing more was said.

 He may have lost the argument, but he won the dramatic flair.