-l says it's a long listing format. Long listing meaning what...? ls by 
default is a long listing format.
ls --author made more sense to me but that did no different than just ls 
or ls -C or even ls -d (which works on unsecured DNS sites)
info ls only has 48 lines of text and didn't help either
I do try my best to do the homework.  Sometime it's easier to ask for a 
quick answer to get another angle THEN re-read the material if fuzzy.

Thanks bunches to all who replied.

ed@flat5.net wrote:

>On Friday 12 September 2003 11:56, Mike Starke wrote:
>  
>
>>On Fri, Sep 12, 2003 at 11:47:25AM -0700, Don Calfa wrote:
>>/_How do I check to see the owner, group, and permission settings of
>>/_file/directories?  I've been doing it in the GUI but now it's one of the
>>/_last things I do in the GUI.
>>/_
>>
>>How about "ls -l" on the command line?
>>-mike
>>    
>>
>
>And "man ls" (on the command line) will tell you all about "ls" and its 
>options. Similarly, "man mv" will tell you about "mv" and so forth. And "man 
>man" will tell you about the man command itself.
>
>A few shell commands have more documentation in "info" so, if you don't find 
>what you need with "man", then FIRST try "info info" to learn how to use 
>"info" and then do, for example, "info ls". ("info libc" is a prime example 
>-- and the documentation is HUGE but only available through "info".)
>
>  
>