>>Besides, I always thought that all the string chopping functions (left, right, substr()) are internally done as Stuff() with special parameters.
>
>You might be right, but that would surprise me. In most languages a lot of care is taken with low-level string functions to make them run as fast as possible. I'd bet the C equivalents of LEFT(), RIGHT() and SUBSTR() are (a lot?) faster than a general-purpose STUFF(). If I was a language designer I wouldn't want to burden those functions with unnecessary overhead.

In Serbian, this one would classify among "vesti iz nesvesti" (news from unconscious state) - I think I remember I saw it somewhere... but can't be sure when, where, and was it exactly Fox or Clipper :)