i was convinced the kids were trolling** me (on a third year class thread), but apparently (or so a trusted informant explained to me) people genuinely did not know the verb 'to cavil'. i despair of today's youth and i'm graduating in mere weeks so there's not enough time to improve their (evidently) paltry vocabularies! but tsinyen wrote to me and opined generously that perhaps they are young and (not being crabby and disagreeable like us) do not do it, and so have no need of the word? would that that were true, she laments.


**they were announcing sign-ups for the fourth year dramatic production (use this form if you want to be in costumes, that one for backstage, this one to audition for parts etc...) so i said, half-mocking: "and where do i sign up to cavil?" dead silence for a long while, the next thing i knew, people started posting screenshots of google definition results of "to cavil".

free web stats