I don't remember where, in my reading up on Excel (to prepare myself for
volunteering in the Excel newsgroups) and figured it was an already known
thing by the Excel community.

I figured out where I saw the 'aaaa' option (no mention of 'aaa' though, so
I guess I invented that one<g)... I saw it in one of the several VBA help
files for the Format function. The easiest way to get to the help page is to
type Format in the Immediate window and press F1, then click the See Also
link at the top of the help page that comes up and select "User-Defined
Date/Time Formats (Format Function)" from the list. The 'aaaa' option is
described about a third of the way down the page. BUT get this... the 'aaaa'
option does NOT work in VBA's Format function! Nor does the described 'oooo'
pattern (supposed localized version of the month name) work in VBA's Format
function either! I did (re)discover the 'c' pattern (it does work inside the
Format function) which looks like it could be useful in certain
circumstances. So, I guess I half-remembered the 'aaaa' pattern from having
seen it in the VBA side and just assumed it would work in TEXT, which it
did. By the way, the 'oooo' and 'c' patterns do NOT work inside the TEXT
function. You just got to *love* Microsoft's help file, eh?

Rick