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OP 
how badly did I muck up all the pronouns?
formerly known as etaoin...
http://www.octavo.com/collections/marginalia/bookworm.html
"One of those people was a man named Rene de Réaumur who, in the 1700s, watched a species
of wasp we now call the paper wasp. These insects were munching on wood. Not eating it, exactly, but chewing it up, spitting the mush back out and forming nests with it. Not pretty, Réaumur might
have thought, but pretty interesting. It seemed to him that the wasps were making paper out of wood"
"The wasps include a multitude of kinds ranging in size from parasitic
species almost invisible to the naked eye and reaching their full growth
inside the tiny eggs of other insects, up to the giant Cicada-killers. Most
kinds are so small or so scarce that they are seldom seen or recognized
by ordinary people, but there are four types familiar to most of us in the
middle west.
The Mud Daubers or "solitary wasps", the White-faced or "Bald-headed
Hornets, the Yellow Jackets, and the Paper Wasps, rear their young in
cells which are as precisely engineered as those in a honeybee comb but
are made of mud or paper instead of wax. The last three are called
"social wasps " because of their caste systems and the division of labor
within their nests. Unlike bees, they feed their young on animal matter
instead of nectar and pollen from flowers. We avoid wasps because a
female defends her nest with a painful stinger and, unlike a honey bee,
she can sting many times.
The common blue-black Mud Dauber typifies our expression "wasp-
waisted" because its abdomen is a mere knob at the end of a long
slender stem. As a female gathers mud and then trowels it into place at
the chosen nest, she seems nervous, fidgety, and constantly jerks her
iridescent wings. One by one, the tube-like mud cells are completed,
stuffed with captured spiders, and egg placed in each, and then sealed.
Each spider is paralyzed by a sting precisely placed so that it will
remain inert but alive until the wasp's grub hatches out and needs it.
When fully grown, the plump whitish grub weaves a silken cocoon
inside the tube and changes into a pupa. Some emerge as adults that
season; others in spring.
The other three familiar types, social wasps, are the world's finest
papermakers. They chew up bits of weathered wood, waste paper and
cardboard to build many-celled combs of tough membranes. The queen
of the colony lays an egg in each cell. When it hatches, the grub is
constantly tended and fed on chewed-up insects -- first by the queen;
later by infertile female workers."
http://newton.dep.anl.gov/natbltn/400-499/nb467.htm
So, wwh, some wasps do chew up paper, too. I think bookwasp is a good term for readers who have a bite and tend to build nests for future thoughts.
OP
Bookworm is now on a banned words list in a lot of schools!Yes...bookworm! Banned as offensive; replace with "intellectual"!
Jumpin' Jehosephat!
I was always proud to be called a bookworm. Even used to strut and say it about myself, "Yep! I'm a real bookworm."
People, we have done jumped off the PC cliff! I'm posting the editorial this is taken from over on Miscellany under "Language Police Are Going Too Far."
formerly known as etaoin...
OP
Personally, the more dog-eared, the more musty smelling, the more pock marked by worms (as long as they restrict themselves to the margins!), the more scrumptious the read.
The article also mentioned borer-damage in India and Australia. I always thought borers were a kind of insect that bored through wood and furniture. I didn't know they attacked books too. I have seen furniture ravaged by borers and if that's their level of chomping competence with wood, it should take them just a day to go through a tome!
Learnt a new word too - Incunable
From NODE:
incunabulum (also incunable)
noun (pl. incunabula ): an early printed book, especially one printed before 1501.
n (incunabula) archaic the early stages of the development of something.
Thanks again, Dr.Bill. In the short time that I have been here, I have learnt a lot from you.
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