Ban(n)ister

Off to an inauspicious start here -- I tried to get this thing up and running just after dinner, and meandered off into a fretful 3-hour detour trying to confirm that I was using the correct spelling for ban(n)ister. Correct-er spelling, I should say, since both "bannister" and "banister" appear to be entirely acceptable. After consulting several dictionaries, text-message polling friends and family, and doing all kinds of geeky academic things like examining the frequency of both variants in JSTOR-archived journals, I threw up my hands and went with the single "n." Apologies to fans of the double.