All About Eave

Quick quiz - what is the word for the extra panel you can slide into the middle of a table to make it longer?

This question came up in a conversation with my roommates a while ago, and while they were quite adamant that it was a "leaf," I was quite adamant myself that it was an "eave." Of course it's "eave" - that's the word I' ve always said, and a table "leaf" just sounds stupid. We finally whipped out Micah's laptop to look it up. After going to a half dozen on-line dictionaries, I was defeated. It is "leaf."

However, I still am quite adamant that "eave" is a much better word than "leaf" for a table extension. Consider the definition(s) of the respective words:

Leaf:
(noun): 1 a (1): a lateral outgrowth from a plant stem that is typically a flattened expanded variably shaped greenish organ, constitutes a unit of the foliage, and functions primarily in food manufacture by photosynthesis (2): a modified leaf (as a bract or sepal) primarily engaged in functions other than food manufacture b (1): foliage leaf> (2): the leaves of a plant as an article of commerce

2: something suggestive of a leaf: as a: a part of a book or folded sheet containing a page on each side b (1): a part (as of window shutters, folding doors, or gates) that slides or is hinged (2): the movable parts of a table top c (1): a thin sheet or plate of any substance : lamina (2): metal (as gold or silver) in sheets usually thinner than foil (3): one of the plates of a leaf spring

(verb): 1 : to shoot out or produce leaves leaf out in spring>

2 : to turn over pages especially to browse or skim <leaf through a book>: to turn over the pages of

Eave:

(noun): 1 : the lower border of a roof that overhangs the wall —usually used in plural
2 : a projecting edge (as of a hill) —usually used in plural

As you can clearly see, "leaf" currently has way too many definitions and "eave" has way too few. "Leaf" is like this big greedy fat-cat word, wallowing in excessive definitions at the expense of poverty-stricken, definitionally oppressed words like "eave." Surely "leaf" would hardly even notice if we took one of its tiny little sub-definitions and gave it too "eave." It would force a public dialogue about "eave" that may change many people's perceptions of the word. It might even to lead to a renaissance of "eave" usage. Besides, I don't find the piece of table anatomy in question to be "suggestive of a leaf," as the good people at Merriam-Webster define it. So regardless of what the whole rest of the world does, I'm going to keep saying "table eave" because I know it is better. Consider this exchange from Alice in Wonderland between Humpty Dumpty and Alice:

[Humpty:] "There are three hundred and sixty-four days when you might get un-birthday presents, and only ONE for birthday presents, you know. There’s glory for you!"

"I don’t know what you mean by 'glory,'" Alice said.

Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. "Of course you don’t — till I tell you. I meant 'there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!'"

"But 'glory' doesn’t mean 'a nice knock-down argument,'" Alice objected.

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less."

"The question is," said Alice, "whether you CAN make words mean so many different things."

"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master - that’s all."

This whole "eave" thing got me thinking that there should be a word or expression for when someone insists on using a word incorrectly even though he/she knows it is incorrect. There is "malapropism," but that is the accidental and humorous misuse of a word (for instance, "We cannot let terrorists and rogue nations hold this nation hostile"). I want a term that describes the deliberate usage of a wrong word because the speaker believes his/her definition to be better.

I'll give you an example: Yesterday Seth and I were talking about English country dancing and he said that he thought it was called "contra dancing." Contra dancing? Come on! How does the contra dance go - up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, select, start? Seth kept on insisting, and I asked him, "Is "contra dancing" your "eave?" However, this probably isn't the best example, since I just looked it up and it turns out Seth was right again - it is called contra dancing.

Okay, better example: when I was a kid my best friend's little brother used to call dragonflies "cresamilas" because he had a dream in which that was what they were called. We asked him why the word "cresamila," and he answered with a tone insinuating that it should have been obvious to us, "Because it has a crease in its wings." To this day I still sometimes call dragonflies "cresamilas."

I therefore propose the following amendments to the word "eave":

Eave:
(noun): 1 : the lower border of a roof that overhangs the wall —usually used in plural
2 : a projecting edge (as of a hill) —usually used in plural
3: the movable parts of a table top
4: an alternate, non-traditional definition of a word that the speaker uses in place of the accepted word, believing it to be superior

So, do any of you out there have any "eaves" that you insist on using? I'd love to hear them so that I can start using them myself.


P.S. - To help people get used to the new definitions of "eave," we could set up a "eave" advice centre, like the one seen here (starting around the 2:40 mark):