Masticate

My Aunt Bonnie, for whom I was named, was the only person I've ever heard use this unusual word.  She must have thought it was funny, since she used it on a regular basis.  I'm not sure you can figure out the word's meaning from the cartoon above.

"My dog masticated my vocab."

Perhaps the boy thinks it means "ate," as in the dog ate my homework, but masticated actually means "chewed."  My aunt would tell us we should masticate our food thoroughly.  She helped me learn "vocab," but would have been appalled by the shortened form of a perfectly good word:  vocabulary.  Maybe my Aunt Bonnie is part of what's behind my fascination with words.