In a message dated 9/13/2000 10:07:34 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [log in to unmask]
writes:

<< Mmmmm. As I think more about this (vague recollections returning), coffin
 doors and main entry doors may have been on the same level. And it could have
 been UK. (Oh, well, you get what you pay for... uh ... sorry, Chriftopher:
 you receive returns commensurate with amounts paid). >>

I still don't buy the notion that everything they did in the 19th century
that we don't do now was done to permit movement of coffins in and out of
houses.

Why doesn't our efteemed Chriftopher call on his colleague Safire (the same
one who hasn't quite found time to run my rant about why it's incorrect to
refer to  concrete as "cement," even if 50 million pinheads [as opposed to
Pinheads, who always refer to it correctly as concrete] call it "cement") to
check Lexus or Nexus or Nextel or Verizon or Jacques Barzun or Jacques
Cousteau or whoever the hell he's always talking about, to do something
useful for a change and find 19th century references to coffin doors,
windows, trimmed openings,  etc.?  Huh?

Sign me,

Ain't not disbelievin'