rootofnewt | i love him so.

i'm sitting here, idly chatting on irc while boy is administering a lovely foot rub to my poor footsies when someone types out the word "curmudgeon".

and i start wondering aloud about this word, of which we have no known etymology. what exactly is "mudgeoning" and why would we do it to a mongrel dog?

and boy announces: "i'm responsible for it."

i look at him. "honey, it's a bit older than you. heck, you don't even QUALIFY yet."

"oh, but i'm going to go back in time and use it inappropriately, but frequently. and i'll erase all evidence of any possible etymology. thus it will stymie anthropological linguists for centuries to come."

i decide to look it up, along with "cromulent" in the webster's unabridged (our "big" dictionary in the house). along the way, i pass "creeping snowberry."

"WAIT!" he excitedly screams, "THAT is the name of my band. WOW! creeping snowberry!" A few moments pass. "What the hell is a creeping snowberry?"

So i read the definition to him: an evergreen shrub Gaultheria hispidula, of northern North America, having solitary, bell-shaped, white flowers and aromatic, birch-flavored, berrylike, white fruit. Wow, it's a shrub that tastes like a tree. Imagine that."

"Tree-flavored. cool." boy is grinning like a little boy who's just discovered a puddle full of tadpoles, mosquito larvae, and slugs.

A few minutes later, he speaks up again: "now i'm really torn between 'creeping snowbush' and 'release the kraken' for my band name. darn. hrm."