diff --git a/docs/mithril.route.md b/docs/mithril.route.md
index d7b6a794..c91e30d3 100644
--- a/docs/mithril.route.md
+++ b/docs/mithril.route.md
@@ -167,7 +167,7 @@ m.route(document.body, "/", {
 m.route("/dashboard"); // logs "unloading home"
 ```
 
-This mechanism is useful to clear timers and unsubscribe event handlers. If you have a hierarchy of components, you can recursively call `unload` on all the components in the tree or use a [pubsub](http://microjs.com/#pubsub) library to unload specific components on demand.
+This mechanism is useful to clear timers and unsubscribe event handlers. If you have a hierarchy of components, you can recursively call `onunload` on all the components in the tree or use a [pubsub](http://microjs.com/#pubsub) library to unload specific components on demand.
 
 ---
 
diff --git a/mithril.js b/mithril.js
index 81ff3f7f..91a0f5c1 100644
--- a/mithril.js
+++ b/mithril.js
@@ -1104,6 +1104,7 @@ var m = (function app(window, undefined) {
 		var extract = xhrOptions.extract || function(xhr) {
 			return xhr.responseText.length === 0 && deserialize === JSON.parse ? null : xhr.responseText
 		};
+		xhrOptions.method = (xhrOptions.method || 'GET').toUpperCase();
 		xhrOptions.url = parameterizeUrl(xhrOptions.url, xhrOptions.data);
 		xhrOptions = bindData(xhrOptions, xhrOptions.data, serialize);
 		xhrOptions.onload = xhrOptions.onerror = function(e) {