“One time, while I was writing, I happened to sniff my armpits absentmindedly. Several people saw me do it, and thought it was funny—and ever after that I was given the name ‘Snarf.’ In the annual for my graduating class, the class of 1940, I’m listed as ‘Kurt Snarfield Vonnegut, Jr.’ Technically, I wasn’t really a snarf. A snarf was a person who went around sniffing girls’ bicycle saddles. I didn’t do that. ‘Twerp’ also had a very specific meaning, which few people know now. Through careless usage, ‘’twerp’ is a pretty formless insult now.
