JARGON!

Someone (you?) needs to compile a book that is all about all sorts of jargon, from all sorts of professions. NOT so as to fake one's way across a conversation with a specific tradesman, a plumber or anesthesiologist, but rather so I can use this book to ANNOY MY WIFE!

For instance, at 7:20 or so Friday morning, as we were sitting on our picnic table blearily sorting through basil, clipping dead leaves off and trimming off parts near to seed, I let fly with:

Something we can do that bigger farms can't is to ensure minimal stemweight...

This, of course, sucks - because of a.) the presumptious blowhardness of saying that we are farmers because we have sold eighty dollars worth of basil, and b.) because of the shitness of my made-up (but very possibly real) term "stemweight." My wife hates this kind of bullshit prattle from me - and yet I couldn't stop! She nearly cried! Later in the day (too late, alas!) I came up with the term "chew-through" for spots where bugs have chomped the leaves...SUCKS!

Then, Saturday, Kyle hipped me to "dumb end," the carpenter term for the dude who holds the end of the tape measure from which measurement is NOT taken...the guy just standing letting the tape roll out, as opposed to the likely more-senior guy doing the actual measuring. I was like, "Whoa! 'The Dumb End"...thanks for the song title!"

Yesterday, my sister-in-law, near completion of a PhD in electrical engineering, was regaling us with tales of "impedences" [actually, no - some other term, but it's gone from my misshapen head] and I wanted to gather those proprietary terms, too.

SO, if you espy me cornering someone at a party with my cranium-full of misused jargon, you will have only yourself to blame for writing this book.

Still, though - DO IT!