1. He was warm, gregarious, crotchety, and humorous.

2. He was tired and crotchety.

3. The old woman had got very crotchety since being warmed up.

4. He is a crotchety old man.

5. His crotchety, even cruel behavior must be mischaracterized too.

6. A lot of older people are crotchety because they've been complaining all their lives. (Down in Florida, my mother describes condo-association bickering as 'nitpicking in paradise.

7. A long, crotchety letter, as we might say in Chile: gloomy and irritable.

8. It's hardly surprising that this bold, or perhaps crotchety, proposal was instantly controversial.

9. You grow old if you are irritable, crotchety, petulant, and cantankerous.

10. A lot of older people are crotchety because they've been complaining all their lives.

11. On deadline day, the paper's crotchety general manager would suddenly appear over her shoulder, inspecting her work for errors.

12. But just when I get crotchety enough to start shopping for a shawl and rocking chair, along comes what may be the one meme on Twitter that actually warms the cockles of my heart: Follow Friday.

13. By the time the meal began, the youngest children were getting tired and crotchety.

14. Meanwhile, in personal life he became a reasonably prosperous but crotchety landowner.

15. When we were in Germany, we rented a room from a crotchety old woman named Brunhilde.

16. Everyone would be assigned a familial role: from Old Man Jerry Buss, the wise and sometimes crotchety grandfather, to consigliere Phil Jackson, the trusted family counselor.

17. Though still, the letters on the page live and breathe as the writer does, crotchety and shaky with old age, hectic with youth, comfortably embracing as a mother.

18. Suffice it to say, though, it is Arthur (with crotchety old Grandsanta's help) who finally saves the day when elder brother Steve's high-tech logistics system overlooks one little girl's stocking.

19. Or how about a tattoo parlor?What would happen if the artist were painstakingly etching the name Vinny into the fleshy arm of a crotchety client when the resident dog accidentally bumped his arm?

20. Anyone can experience it and benefit from it, even the most crotchety uncle at the Thanksgiving dinner table.

21. The real trouble was that Gerhardt had grown intensely morose and crotchety, and it was becoming impossible for young people to live with him.

22. Your brothers provide quite well for all of us, and I need your smile here. But then, no-one listens to a crotchety old lady in a wheelchair.