def _make_argument_list(*args, **kwargs):
    """

    Turn pythonic list of positional arguments and keyword arguments
    into a list of strings.

    N.B.: subprocess.Popen works best with each argument as item in
    list, not as a single string. Otherwise it breaks on starlink
    commands that are really python scripts.

    """
    output = []
    for i in args:
        output.append(str(i) + ' ')
    for key, value in kwargs.items():
        if key[-1] == '_':
            key = key[:-1]
        output.append(str(key) + '=' + str(value))
    output = [i.rstrip() for i in output]
    return output
