Last night we were watching Lost (long story) and Laralee asked where the term “booby trap” came from.
Without missing a beat, I said, “It’s from the days long ago when they would catch boobies, which are little birds.”
Both Laralee and Kyra were immediately skeptical. “You totally made that up.” They didn’t believe there was such a thing as a booby, and of course that my story about the etymology of the phrase was complete fiction.
Fortunately I had Zack on my side. He confirmed that boobies are little birds. The girls were adamant that there was no such thing. Laralee finally decided to end the debate by looking it up on her phone.
Kyra remarked, “You might want to be careful about searching for ‘boobies’ on the internet.” Ha ha, indeed you might!
Anyway, with some careful searching, Laralee was able to confirm that (1) there are indeed birds called boobies, and (2) there were indeed traps set for them back in the 17th Century. To be clear, a competing theory about the origin of “booby trap” states that it was intended for people who weren’t very bright, often referred to as “boobs”.
Vindication! Kyra still insisted I’d made it all up, and of course she was right, but it was nice that my more-or-less educated guess was correct.
