*(Word of the Random Day)

The term maverick is being bandied about pretty heavily right now, and every time I hear it, I find myself thinking, “Isn’t that a yearling calf?” Now, I grew up in cow country, but we weren’t a rancher family, so I absorbed things around the edges rather than getting it full on. I wasn’t sure I was remembering it right, so I looked it up in Wikipedia.  Here’s what it (they?) had to say:

A maverick is an unbranded range animal, especially a motherless calf; it can also mean a person who thinks independently; a lone dissenter; a non-conformist or rebel.

But here’s the info on the person who was the source of the term:

Samuel Augustus Maverick (July 23, 1803–September 2, 1870) was a Texas lawyer, politician, land baron and signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence. His name is the source of the term “maverick”, first cited in 1867, which means independent minded. Maverick was considered independent minded by his fellow ranchers because he refused to brand his cattle. In fact, Maverick’s failure to brand his cattle had little to do with independent mindedness, but reflected his lack of interest in ranching (emphasis mine – LH)  He is the grandfather of U.S. Congressman Maury Maverick, who coined the term gobbledygook (1944).

So the original Maverick was someone who didn’t do what he knew was right because he couldn’t  care less. And then his grandson invented the term we use to describe convoluted political language.

Now that’s what you call synergy.