at least for the engineers in my family and friend group). In his freshman year of university his great-uncle invested in the up-and-coming Macintosh company; my dad's grammar, spelling, and overall grasp on the English language was poor (for no reason besides his lack of attention in school). However, he claims that he passed college because he was able to present a well-styled, typed essay. Presentation is everything to him; a stronger grasp on our vast language allows people like me -- in the social sciences -- to impress upon my audiences a more confident and "typed" essay. This subject has long been an obsession of mine. Perhaps it is because the design of a rhetorically sound presentation is one of my strengths. Professionally (I'm a biochemist and cellular biologist), I am surrounded by people a damned sight smarter than me, as is my wife; but I have benefited from a knack for not only putting my finger on the phrase, but for structuring those phrases into stories that engage people. It is my salient strength. What we say is built of the words we use, the order we say them in, and how we look and sound when we say them. It is easy and perhaps erroneous for me to speculate about the reasons why I have this ability; and I run the risk of self-rationalization and self-congratulation in that speculation. I will therefore offer these arrogant thoughts in such limited humility as I can muster in the hope