The new Superintendent of Schools was adamant that, “We need to utilize benevolent vice-principals and teachers who will take the time to deal with the ravelment of teen issues that come up in high school, not to ratiocinate a ‘zero tolerance’ policy with no ifs ands or buts.”.

Because ‘Reason’ was already taken by another magazine, one of the founders of a new publication suggested ‘Ratiocination’ as its name, and ‘no ifs, ands or buts’ as its no-nonsense tag line, but the meeting was thrown into ravelment and pandemonium when another founder huffed derisively that ‘Ratiocination’ was inappropriate for a benevolent monthly such as theirs because it sounded pompous and too much like ‘assassination’.

"I don't want to hear any ifs, ands, or butts," said Chauncy; and something within me--call it my innate power of ratiocination, or perhaps some benevolent dispensation of uncanny insight from above--something within me knew that the Maltese eunuch had added that extra "t" to the word but, ever-so-subtly shifting the meaning of the word from objection to tuchus, in an ill-fated attempt to derail the proceedings and plunge us all into a state of baffled ravelment.