crank 'em out

When I search "puppymill" the search asks "Do you mean 'puppy mill'?"

No, I don't, but that is the way the search engine thinks it is spelled.

I think we have reached the point that "puppymill" is a word, not a phrase.

Laws often really care about the words themselves.

We, mere mortals, tend to assume that other people know what we mean, and agree with whatever definition we have for a word.

Dictionary meanings, which is what laws use, can be surprising.

For example, way back, the word "funky" became popular.

One popular girl was upset that someone had called her "funky".

I assumed that I knew what funky meant - it meant "mod, hip, with it, in style".

She said she thought that was what funky meant too,

but she looked it up in the dictionary and it said funky meant "smelly".

She wasn't too happy.

She was a nice girl, and quite hip and stylish,

so I told her that the person who called her "funky"

had probably assumed the meaning of the word like I had.

Good lesson in looking a word up in the dictionary.

So what does "puppy mill" mean?The truth seems to be, that different groups of people each have their own definition of the word "puppymill".

Maybe some day one group's definition will win out - but until then, different people each have their own definition of what "puppymill" means.

photos from:

http://animalsvoice.com/