None of Isaiah Ross's students went unmotivated for more than 30 seconds. "He scared us pissless," was the way one young alumnus of Barton Country Day put it to me."He even frightened me into learning the subjunctive of indirect discourse." His tone was reproachful, as though Mr. Ross were still alive and brandishing his pointer at him every morning.

I told him, a little condescendingly, that 20 years earlier than he I had had a similar experience with verb prefixes that required the dative."Ad, ante, con, in, inter, ob ..." I began.

He gave me a haggard look. "Post, prae, pro, sub, and super," he said, "and sometimes ...sometimes..."