This is what I ended up with btw. Does this insult anyone's more well attuned Python sensibilities?
letters='abcdefghijkl' def repeat(): print('wanna go again?') batman=input() if batman in ('y','yes'): main() else: return def main(): print('guess a letter') batman=input() if batman in letters: print('ok that letter was in letters') repeat() else: print('asdasdasd') repeat() main() print('how ya doin') -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list