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Maybe this was simply owed to the demands of the book form—how many ways can you find to say “animal companion,” the supposed PC term for “pet”? Nigel Rees’ The Politically Correct Phrasebook from 1994 has a list of dozens of variations on the formula “xyz challenged,” and several of them—“hygienically challenged” and “orthographically challenged”—get their own entries.

Their inventions—“animal companion” instead of “pet”! “Womanhole covers” instead of “manhole covers”!—often enough entered the churn as more fodder for outrage down the line.

In more than a dozen conversations and message exchanges with people who had memorably adverse adoption attempts within the last couple of years, I learned that the time between the start and end of most animal companion searches tends to be much shorter.

Now a recent study in the journal Applied Animal Behaviour Science reveals that cats may be deep enough to display grief when they lose a beloved animal companion.

Indeed, if you want company for your heartbreak, announce your animal companion’s death on a social media platform.