An idiot's guide to shipping.

One of my secret pleasures is pretending to misunderstand things. Not just "I don't know what that is," but coming up with an entirely alternate definition of something that makes perfect sense. And this morning, I discovered a perfect target for that quirk: shipping pair names.

It started with an early morning, fuzzy-brained moment when I actually thought MorMor pairing was Morstan/Moran. But then I went, what if Mary Morstan's true love was being penetrated by a morphine needle? Still "Mormor," right?

So then, Johnlock could also be John Watson and Porlock, Moriarty's traitor.

And from there, it just started totally going downhill, especially since the OC is my beat. ("Original Canon" for you Californians who might mistake it for "Orange County.")

Sherlolly? That's Sherman the bird-stuffer and Sir Edward Holly. You don't get a rarer pair than that. I suspect it was dubcon as Sir Edward was attacked in "The Gloria Scott," and Sherman was into stuffing things.

Mystrade gets interesting, because you just can't get away from that first part of "Mycroft." But his fetish for that chipped stone bridge balustrade on "Thor Bridge" gets you a Mystrade that was probably a little rough on brother's physique.

Adcroft is, of course that secret romance between Ronald Adair and Dr. Thorneycroft Huxtable. (Yes, Virginia, there were Huxtables before The Cosby Show.) Cookies had to be involved. That second part of "Mycroft" isn't so hard to pull up ships for, until the "My" part, oddly enough.

You can even conceive of Morcroft as James Mortimer and Hall Pycroft. Don't know if Hall Pycroft had a skull worth covetting, but you know that Dartmoor doctor had to be into it.

Of course, there really is a "Morecroft" in "Three Garridebs" (alias "Killer" Evans), so there's still more fodder to put Alice Morphy and Morecroft together to come up with a Morcroft that's some counterfeit monkey business.

Purposeful misunderstanding is a lovely little creative exercise to annoy your friends with. And it gets those kind of laughs that aren't contagious at all . . . you can amuse yourself while safely not endangering the seriousness of others.

Of course, you might wind up with the mental image of Mycroft and a balustrade in your head all day, so caution, especially in pairings misunderstanding, should be observed.