<THREAD CREEP>
To feel uncomfortable in referring to a female dog as a 'bitch' is to misuse the language. That is the correct word. The insult term is incorrect usage. I happened to see it in a headline in a newspaper a few weeks ago. If I remember correctly:

Mayor's Bitch Takes Best in Show

The mayor of one of Denver's suburbs is a well-known dog breeder.
</THREAD CREEP>

A fine site for people interested in words is One-Look Dictionaries. Search a whole PILE of on-line dictionaries from one search site.

"Curmudgeon" returned hits at nine different dictionaries: Cambridge International Dictionary of English; WordNet Vocabulary Helper (NotreDame); AllWords.com - English with Multi-Lingual Search; Dictionary.com; Merriam-Webster's WWWebster Dictionary; The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language; The Wordsmyth English Dictionary-Thesaurus; Webster's Revised Unabridged, 1913 Edition; and World Wide Words.

And if you can't remember the name of this site, the easiest way to get there is to go to Yahoo's front page. In the left-hand column is a major entry of "Reference". A sub-entry below that -- the second of three -- is "Dictionaries". Click that and One-Look shows up as one of their choices.

I don't use any other dictionary anymore.

BB,
WordFreak er, NightWing