www.alphadictionary.com

@Bailey, Luddite: I won't confuse that.

Eberntson, 9/10. You left out "chickenboner".

Anyway, I'm not sure that geekdom still requires social ineptitude, I've met a few that lack the nerdy aspect that the word used to imply. Or maybe everyone out there has just become more geeky. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

"Geek" is cool now... so time to move on. I'm getting older so I am moving on to "eccentric" with a twist of "steam punk" rubbed on the rim.

E

Thanks for resurfacing the post. Like many posts, Andrew or someone should enable us to cut and paste the geek part under its own name. Before the geekdom came up, I was about to comment on Lousiana crawfish. You may need a license, but I don't know anyone who ever asked. Come down any spring after a rainstorm, find most any creek or even ditch, and scoop up all you want with a net. Alternatively, a string tied to a piece of bacon will get you one at a time. Avoid snakes.

Suirrels are regular fare down here early in the season, a month before deer are legal. Fried or in stew they're great. At crawfish boils we make huge piles on newspaper and argue ever whether to suck the heads or just pull off the tails. Personally, if there's a choice, I pick shrimp because you get more with less effort. However, my s-i-l's crawfish etouffee is world class!

This is my favorite etymology (if you didn't already know). It is a ping-pong game between French and the Germanic languages.

http://www.alphadictionary.com/blog/?p=180
http://www.alphadictionary.com/articles ... ology.html (Scroll down to the Cs)

Cuddle fish? I can't imagine a cuddly bivalve.

http://www.alphadictionary.com/blog/?p=180 discusses borrowed words and the fact that some them have been returned to the source language with modified meaning.

One I particularly like is the word ranch. As I understand it, at the time of the USA-Mexican war the word rancho meant something like a line shack in Spanish. We borrowed it and made a ranch be the whole shebang of an agrarian estate. Now it means that in Mexican Spanish.

I forget what crawdads (crayfish more properly)are called in Australia, OH wait, yabbies, now if that doesn't that get those Pavlovian juices flowing I don't know what does.

M. Not-sur-la-table Bailey

Bailey- I wonder if Wimpy would give you a quarter tomorrow for a squirrel burger todayGclub

Welcome to theking, and thanks for bringing up this great thread. I would even add to my post about crawfish and squirrels to include Louisiana's favorite roadkill (actually!). It's deer. At least in N LA deer have a suicidal instinct to leap in front of moving at 60 mph or above. Happens do often, insurance repairs your car, but neither insurance nor the law considers you at fault. In theory, the law forbids you from using the deer for food. That theory holds if you happen to be followed by a state trooper. Otherwise, you throw it in the back of your pickup, carry it to the house, and hang it from the swing set or someplace to field dress it. Alternatively, you can take it to a packing house and let them deal with it. You'd be surprised how many southern families use deer as their primary meat.

Hunt deer in a high-fenced area and you pay about fifty dollars per pound for venison. Headlight deer on the road and the meat is free, as long as you don't get caught. As for wild game, I grew up on it. My old granny used to take two 22 short shells with her trusty 22 rifle into the woods and come back with two rabbits for our noon meal. She never missed.

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