MNM - Have only just got around to doing Jumbo 821 and came across your question in the course of trying to find a few answers myself. You need to know where 'item' came from don't you? I can only assume that 'item' once meant 'also' . I seem to remember shopkeepers when stocktaking, saying 'item: one roll of silk; item: one roll of cotton' etc. Could this be why 'item' preceded 'is Ed'?