I heard an advert on the radio, while driving to court this morning, for some kind of shoe insert/foot pad device that is supposed to take twenty years off the purchaser's life. At the end of the ad, the announcer invited listeners to come into the store and consult with the "pedorthist" about getting the right inserts/pads. "Sheesh," I thought to myself, "this company has made up a word from bits of language which refer to feet and bones and joints and made their sales staff sound like brain surgeons.

Not so, Little Beaver! I looked it up. There are such things as pedorthists in the other-than-commercial-make-believe world. A pedorthist is a person who fits, manufactures and/or modifies shoes and other appliances for the feet to address deformations and disabilities. Some of them make shoes; others make "orthotics" which are thingies which fit inside of shoes. Who knew!?

There are even certified pedorthists. Here in the Colonies, it is the Board for Certification in Pedorthics which does it. Up north, it is the College of Pedorthics of Canada.

I am humbled ... and you can't get shoe pads to fix that.