thanks to both of you. For future searchers, since the template function codex documentation has a ways to go yet ?? –
function get_the_content($more_link_text = ‘(more…)’, $stripteaser = 0, $more_file = ”)
… where the function call must be made within the Loop for multiple posts including the excerpt. Outside the loop the function appears to return the entire content of the given post, as would be expected. The parameters appear to be identical to those for the_content, and, in fact, the_content calls get_the_content.
I’ll add some tags to this post as well.