GLAD YOU ASKED THAT A bit fuzzy about how critters, varmints differ

By JEFF ELDER
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
Q: Recently while out to dinner with friends (from Pennsylvania), my husband (Alabama) and I (Kentucky) were discussing the distinction between a critter and a varmit. Your thoughts? -- Dru Quarles, Charlotte, N.C.
A: Dru, I (Tennessee), see it this way:
A critter is any animal you are not currently mad at. Our furry friends in the woods, for instance. Bambi, Thumper, Flower -- critters all.
A varmint (the preferred spelling) is any animal you ARE currently mad at. The raccoon that got into the garbage and made a mess, say. Varmint often seems to be preceded by "low-down." Women sometimes refer to men as varmints. I cannot fathom why.
Backed him up
The experts appear to back me up. Critter is "a pronunciation spelling of creature," says the Online Etymology Dictionary, and the most common meaning is simply an animal, whether wild or domestic.
Varmint, however, is a corruption of "vermin," John Russell Bartlett wrote in his 1848 "Dictionary of Americanisms." Varmints are said to be "noxious wild beasts." The man Bartlett quoted there to help establish the word's meaning? Davy Crockett, who was writing about shooting varmints. (He, of course, was born on a mountaintop in Tennessee.)