-There is an alternative mode of operation, enabled by the \cw{-a}
-option, in which \cw{nntpid} retrieves \e{all} available articles in
-the group and writes them to standard output in \cw{mbox} format.
+There are a couple of alternative mode of operation. In one, enabled
+by the \cw{-a} option, \cw{nntpid} retrieves \e{all} available
+articles in the group and writes them to standard output in \cw{mbox}
+format. In the other, enabled with \cw{-b}, \cw{nntpid} simply prints
+the lowest and highest article numbers currently available in that
+group from the news server.