He warned them. He told them he was coming, but they were unprepared. Not ritually-his demands were in keeping with many of the religious practices of the day, a checklist of dos and don'ts that required only effort: Wash your clothes, keep your distance, abstain from sex.

Word people, a dreaded sub-class of the human race, enjoy pouncing upon unsuspecting mortals to denounce their syntax or misconstructions. Topping out my own list of pet peeves are nouns masquerading as verbs ("to keyboard"), certain clumsy hybrids (like "actualize"), and downright misuses ("momentarily" used to mean "in a moment" rather than "for a moment"). These are persnickety complaints, for language is always in flux, but sometimes sloppy constructions can lead to sloppy thinking. Consider a very common one: the use of "Christian" as an adjective.

Dr. Laura Schlessinger and I go way back. I was urging friends to tune in to her radio program when none of them had even heard of her. Since then the growth of her popularity has been both phenomenal and gratifying. The more listeners who subscribe to-and live-her practical tenets of personal responsibility and communal morality, the better our society will be.