An amusing anecdote: Someone told me that HyperScript simply ignores the word "the" when interpreting scripts. I wonder if that's true for the other little words like "of" and "in." Too bad I no longer have a Mac, to try it out.
I wrote some industrial control apps using HyperCard. Unfortunately, it was at a time when the Mac OS was going through a dark period, and just wasn't stable enough to use in a factory. We ended up with Visual Basic instead, but I continued to use HyperCard at home.
I've just checked "of" on my Mac with HyperCard, and the answer is no - it's not optional. (I tried with "answer the number of cards" and "answer number of cards", which both worked fine, but "answer the number cards" and "answer number cards" both didn't).
If you still have copies of those industrial control HyperCard stacks, I'd love if you were to upload them[1] for the online collection[2] (provided, of course, that doing so doesn't violate any NDAs / etc...).
I wrote some industrial control apps using HyperCard. Unfortunately, it was at a time when the Mac OS was going through a dark period, and just wasn't stable enough to use in a factory. We ended up with Visual Basic instead, but I continued to use HyperCard at home.