Do cats really copy?

On the one hand:
I was writing up a memo at work today. No need to go into details except to say that it had to do with some pension fund's unattributable liability. And when "unattributable" popped up with a little red squiggly line indicating that it was misspelled, I wasn't entirely surprised. Because for one, "unattributable" is as hard to spell as it is to pronounce. For two, no one ever really uses the word "unattributable," so it's probably not in every dictionary. And three, is it really even a word?

I looked it up online to make sure. Merriam-Webster.com. Indeed, it is a word. I didn't read the definition (though I suppose I should have, since I was writing a memo about it), but I was happy to see that I had not, in fact, misspelled it even though I wasn't sure it was a word in the first place.

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On the other hand:
It is common practice in the company to jot down "Doer Notes" as your tasks unfold. It helps other people who look at your results to understand what you did to come up with them. Also, since we generally repeat the same tasks on a yearly basis, it helps us to remember what it was we did a year ago. Some people take it more seriously than other, writing down every step, "First, I labeled the files. Then, I created a folder on the M-drive, which I named 2009. Then I created a Word document..." Some people are less specific. "Basically, I did what we did last year. The data was kind of a mess." And some people like to insert unnecessary comments, "First, I labeled the files. Then, I created a folder on the M-drive, which I named 2009. Oops, sorry about that coffee blot. I bumped my mug."

Anyway, generally speaking, I am moderately serious about my Doer Notes. I try not to be overly specific, because there isn't anything I can do that anyone else in the office can't do better and more quickly. I mostly just make notes of strange occurrences, like, "Everyone who retired last year was between the age of 57 and 65, except Frederick Buddy who retired at 48."

A lot of times though, the quality of Doer Notes are greatly affected by the amount of time we have to do them. The fact of the matter is, sometimes we need to get a project finished, typed, reviewed, typed again, final reviewed, and sent to the client before the end of the day. So there isn't much time for extensive note-taking.

More to the point, lately I have been occasionally throwing in made up words. When I'm trying to get a point across and all I can think of is how my assets aren't matching my liabilities, I have trouble getting the right words off the tip of my tongue. So I just make something up. Why not? It's just an internal, unofficial compilation of notes. It doesn't even qualify as a memo.

And that's why I wrote, "I basically copycatted last year's data log." Nevermind that I couldn't think of the word, "copied". I figured whoever was reading it would know what I was trying to say, and I had to get my results and memo out by Noon. The thing that got me though was that "copycatted" didn't have that red squiggly underline, but "unattributable" did! Nevermind the deadline, I had to look the word up on Merriam-Webster online.

"Copycatted" is a real word! Before, I got the red squiggly when I used the word unattributable, which while I didn't know the definition, I was pretty confident was a real word. Now here I am completely making up a word because I had fallen on a few seconds of near complete vocabularilessness (not a word, I checked), and it turns out it's a word after all.

Which means a sequence of three things:
1) A term that I've always assumed to be a child's term, "copycat", became a commonly accepted noun.
2) Then, somebody, probably American (because American's have a way unlike any other culture for bastardizing their own language) started using copycat as a verb, and it became accepted.
3) And naturally, as a verb, it must have a past tense, so it became acceptable to use the word, "copycatted."

That's my guess anyway. (Upon further research, it turns out it's not a child's term, and it's been around since the 1800s.)

And seriously, what do cats copy anyway? Cats are too independent; they do their own thing. Chimpanzees copy. Parrots mimic. Dogs sleepwalk. Cats don't copy.

Just a thought.