Hypocorism doesn't sound endearing

I subscribed to the "Word of the day" feature of My Yahoo! and today's word is hypocorism. Without clicking on the link leading to its definition, I tried to guess what it meant...being the geeky weirdo that I am. I initially thought that it was some kind of disorder or an extreme of something. TheFreeDictionary defines it as a name of endearment; a pet name. What a waste of dictionary space! Wouldn't it be funny to see hypocorism in an autograph book? (Name:_______ Hypocorism:________) At least we all learned something today.