... to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans, born in this century, who can place magnetic letters on a file cabinet, form actual English words, and use these words to craft a grammatically correct sentence.
Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that in this sentence the subject and verb shall agree, that the prepositional phrase shall be descriptive and aptly placed, and that the overall construction shall be a statement of fact, verifiable by all and sundry.
Let the record thus show that, on November the twelfth, in the year of our Lord two thousand and aught-five, the first sentence my elder son ever sounded out and read, all by himself, was: ROBERT POOPS IN THE TOILET.
