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A PODCAST ABOUT LANGUAGE
BY HELEN ZALTZMAN

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The Allusionist

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Allusionist 158. Creature Quiz!

August 5, 2022 The Allusionist

MP3 • APPLE PODCASTS • RSS • STITCHER • GOOGLE • TRANSCRIPT

There's lots of fun etymology of creatures and a lot of fun etymology derived from creatures, and now it is gathered into this fun playalong quiz about animal etymologies!

Play along and keep track of your score using the interactive scoresheet further down this post.

There’s the usual section of links to extra information about the various animals and etymologies, but I’ve put it at the bottom of the post this time, in case any of it was spoilery.

For some more playalong etymological fun, try the other Quizlusionists on topics including food, clothing, eponyms and swearing - and some other creatures. Etymology of ‘falcon’ is in the Hedge Rider episode, and guess what the Ladybird Ladybug episode is about. I also talked about collective nouns for animals on fellow language pod Lexitecture.

See the Allusionist live show in Aotearoa New Zealand in August 2022!

See the Allusionist live show in Aotearoa New Zealand in August 2022! See the Allusionist live show in Aotearoa New Zealand in August 2022!

YOUR RANDOMLY SELECTED WORD FROM THE DICTIONARY:

meatus, noun, anatomy: the opening of a passage or canal, plural meatuses, adjective meatal.

CREDITS:

  • This episode was written and produced by me, Helen Zaltzman.

  • The original Allusionist music is by Martin Austwick. Download his songs at palebirdmusic.com and listen to his podcasts Song By Song and Neutrino Watch.

  • Find the show at twitter.com/allusionistshow, facebook.com/allusionistshow, twitter.com/helenzaltzman and instagram.com/allusionistshow.

Your interactive answer sheet is below this photo of Whisky the pig recording with me.

Here’s special guest Whisky the pig.

Are you ready to quiz???

GO!

QUESTION 1. Which creature’s name has the etymology ‘little priest’?

B: parakeet is derived from the Italian parrochetto, ‘little priest’.

QUESTION 2. 'Magpie' is short for:

B. Margaret pica!

The Mag stood for Margaret, and think about it, quite a few common birds had human names, the jenny wren, the tomtit, the robin redbreast - originally robert redbreast - the jackdaw, formerly just a ‘daw’. Similarly, the magpie was originally just a pie, we’ll get back to that in a sec. Why Margaret though in magpie? The name was used to denote women, yes the concept of women, and why for this bird? Because it chatters! What else chatters? WOMEN! They could have just carried on calling it a pie, but no; got to get ole rowdy Maggie permanently added. And the pie part, might be related to pie, in that the pastry-encased food genre might be derived from magpie, because a pie contains a variety of ingredients just like a magpie collects assortments of things or will eat pretty much anything. I’m not sure I buy this explanation. The pie of magpie derives from the Latin for magpie, ‘pica’, but the medical condition pica derives from magpie, pica where people eat substances that aren’t foods, another reference to the magpie’s wide-ranging eating habits.

The pie part of magpie also became a term to mean black and white, like in piebald.

QUESTION 3. What’s a word that denotes something similar to piebald but meaning patches of white and other colours than black?

A word that denotes something similar to piebald but meaning patches of white and other colours than black is A. skewbald.

Bald meant ‘white patches’, which is a very white person-centric way to describe the absence of hair.

QUESTION 4. Which animal did 14th century English speakers call a camelopard?

ANSWER: ‘Giraffe’ used to be known in English as ‘camelopard’.

They portmanteaued camel, for the long neck like a giraffe, and leopard for the leopard-like spots. The word ‘giraffe’ probably comes from the Arabic zarāfah, which translates to ‘fast walker’. And fair play for not choosing the most obvious characteristic of a giraffe, “You know what, it’s a bit mainstream to keep going on about the giraffe having a long neck, let’s give it some credit for being able to sprint up to 60 kilometres per hour.”

Camels in Old English were known as ‘olfends’, as in elephants, probably because most Old English speakers had never seen a camel or an elepant, just heard tell of these beasts, so you can imagine how these mix-ups could happen. A bit like when someone relates a joke they once heard and it’s hard for you to reconstruct into an actual joke.

QUESTION 5. Which mammal’s name is, in many different languages, ‘washing bear’, and in English is a loan word that means ‘animal that scratches with its hands’?

ANSWER: Raccoon, because raccoons are very handy at scratching for their food - and their hands - or rather front paws or forepaws - are very sensitive, ten times more so than human hands, touch is the raccoon’s primary sense.

Some raccoon etymology refers to them rubbing their front paws together, which increases their sensitivity, as does getting them wet. That’s why so many other raccoon terms refer to washing, because raccoons look like they’re doing some hand laundry, but it’s because when they’ve found a potential bit of food, they’re checking that it’s suitable for them to eat.

The etymology of another raccoon name, trash panda, I think you can figure out for yourself.

QUESTION 6. Chicken pox is not so-called because people caught it from chickens - no no! Can’t blame chickens for this: So why IS it called chicken pox? The etymology has never been confirmed; I’ve found several theories, but which one of the following is the one I’ve made up?

ANSWER: the false explanation is C. The blisters look like little eggs - I made that up. But it’s not much more tenuous than chickpeas.


Another probably false explanation is that ‘chicken’ was a cute name for children and children get chicken pox.


And why are chickens associated with weakness or cowardice? Some several hundred year-old connotations where cocks, or roosters as you might know them, were confident and bold, so in contrast hens are pathetic and to be hen-hearted was to be timid. Unfair, I say, unfair!

QUESTION 7. Why is the barnacle goose called barnacle goose?

ANSWER: A. People used to think barnacle geese hatched from barnacles.

Barnacle the sea creature is even named after a type of goose. I know, it seems obvious in retrospect that they don’t because barnacles are a marine arthropod and those don’t really have the wherewithal to beget a bird. But before people knew about bird migration, they thought:
“Wow, we never see these geese around in summer and we never see them laying their eggs in nests” - that’s because in summer the geese were up in the Arctic breeding - “and they’re often hanging around on driftwood, therefore they must be springing to life fully formed on the driftwood!”
“Wait no that’s absurd. Take a closer look at the driftwood. See those little lumps? Remind you of anything?”
“Not really -”
“LOOK CLOSER! Are you seeing it?”
“...Sure, ok…”
“Black and white, like GEESE! Shaped like the heads of geese! GEESE! They pop out of these nubbins as fully formed geese!”

And this myth persisted, despite evidence-based debunking, for many centuries until about 200 years ago, also provoking many religious discussions about whether the barnacle goose was a bird or fish, so could you eat it in circumstances where meat was forbidden, like during Lent. Pope Innocent III said no, if it acts like a duck and eats like a duck, it’s not getting dietarily categorised as a crustacean.

Bonus barnacle fact: barnacles have the largest penis to body size ratio in the animal kingdom, their penises can be up to eight times their body length. But barnacles don’t have hearts, so just be careful about getting involved, ok? However, goose barnacles don’t have such long penises that enable them to reach as far as another barnacle to impregnate it, so a method of reproduction they use is called spermcasting, and as a podcaster, I don’t even want to think about it.

QUESTION 8. The etymology of ‘squirrel’ is:

ANSWER: The etymology of ‘squirrel’ is A. Shadow Arse.


From the Greek word σκίουρος, the ‘skia’ means shadow and the ‘ouros’ means tail, but it’s from the same root word as arse so squirrel etymology is ‘shadow arse’ and that’s my final offer.

Before ‘squirrel’ which English got from French in the early 1500s, the English word for ‘squirrel’ was ācweorna which is something to do with acorns, perhaps ‘acorn eater’, ask your nearest thousand-year-old squirrel to clarify.

QUESTION 9. Ferret derives from the Latin word for:

ANSWER: ‘Ferret’ derives from the Latin word for B. thief!

The full Latin name for ferret is ‘mustela putorious furo’, the furo means thief and putor means smelly.

QUESTION 10. Which of the following animals also derives from the Proto-Indo-European word for stinky?

ANSWER: A. Weasel derives from the Proto-Indo-European word for stinky, ‘wisand-’ - which might also be the root of the word bison. Do bison smell particularly? Or is it referring to the bison’s keen sense of smell? Those are rhetorical questions, you don’t get points for answering.

But I can reward you with this little fact about polecats: one Latin name for them is putorius foetidus, which translates to stinky stench. Someone really wanted us to know that polecats smell.

QUESTION 11. Why is it that evasiveness is called being weaselly, and weasel words are terms that with their vagueness deliberately undermine the meaningfulness of the rest of the statement? Is it because:

ANSWER: A. Weasels are said to be able to suck the contents out of an egg without breaking the shell.

Although note the weasel wordage, “weasels are said to be able to” - it’s unconfirmed. They might not have the mandibles capable of such feats. Anyway, the presence of a weasel word renders the statement empty, lacking in nourishment.

QUESTION 12. What did the 13th century term an ‘addle egg’ mean? Egg addling in the modern day is a method of controlling the Canada goose population but what was an addle egg in the 13th century?

ANSWER: the 13th century term an ‘addle egg’ meant A. a rotten egg.

Addle in Old and Middle English meant urine or dung or mud, and ‘addle egg’ was a translation of a Latin term ovum urinum, meaning ‘urine egg’. Why urine egg? Well Latin had borrowed from a Greek term for a rotten egg, οὔριον ᾠόν, and that οὔριον didn’t have anything to do with urine but meant “wind”. The Greeks were talking about “wind eggs”, eggshells that might be empty literally or metaphorically of what you’d expect of an egg.

QUESTION 13. Originally the word ‘deer’ had a much broader meaning, in Old English it was any animal, especially a wild animal. In other words that have got a lot narrower in meaning, which of the following used to mean any kind of property - land, money, etc?

ANSWER: C. Cattle used to mean property of any kind; ‘chattel’ is another version of the same thing, both from the medieval Latin ‘capitale’ meaning property, although that ultimately derives from ‘caput’ meaning ‘head’.

As to why cattle became cows specifically: livestock animals like cows, sheep, horses were property, and cattle went from meaning property of any kind to property that was movable - real property or as you might recognise it now, real estate, was fixed, unmovable, so that was land, buildings, and any animals belonging to the land so for instance you might sell your land complete with the chickens or ducks or wild creatures that live on it, whereas the cattle property was items that weren’t fixed to the land so could be moved elsewhere with their owner, or the owner could sell the cattle without selling the land. Thus cattle narrowed from property to movable property to livestock to cows.

Don’t ask me why they couldn’t move chickens in those days. Maybe chickens used to be a lot heavier and more difficult to budge.

The word ‘fee’ also used to mean livestock in Old English, as did the ‘pecu’ in the Latin word for money, ‘pecunia’, cows are money.

QUESTION 14. The idiom “mare’s nest” - mare’s nest, as in female horse’s nest - what does that mean?

ANSWER: a mare’s nest is C. a discovery that looks important but turns out to be a hoax. Because mares don’t make nests. OR DO THEY.

QUESTION 15. Shrews are tiny furry animals that don’t seem to be particularly malevolent, busy trying to eat their own bodyweight in seeds and insects each day because of their fast metabolisms. But ‘shrew’ was an insulting word, in more recent centuries just for women who were considered too scolding or sassy or otherwise insufficiently meek; but before Chaucer and Shakespeare spurred a trend for shrews being those kinds of women, it was an all-genders insult. Because there were many myths about the evils of the animal shrews. And there was a verb ‘beshrew’, to curse or bring evil upon someone. Which one of the following is a myth about shrews I just made up, rather than one put about by celebrated writers, philosophers and historians of hundreds or thousands of years ago? Choose the freshly faked shrew myth:

ANSWER: the one I made up was A. shrews’ eyes can turn a human to stone.

The others are shrew myths made up or propagated by the likes of Aristotle, Pliny and Edward Topsell, author of the 1607 tome The History of Four-Footed Beasts, wherein he held forth about the cruel and ravening shrew and its venomous bites - yes, a few types of shrew do have venomous bites to immobilise their prey, but large mammals like humans and horses and cows are likely to be ok. Remember, a shrew is smaller than a mouse, so even if it did kill a horse what’s it going to do with a dead horse?

Anyway, good news if you do get poisoned by a shrew bite: Edward Topsell offers several remedies, including powdered burnt shrew mixed with goose grease, honey mixed with ground ram’s hoof, or dog poo. I don’t know if you swallow these remedies or apply them to the wound, but good luck if you try them.

QUESTION 16. Which aquatic mammal’s name means pig-fish? A merpig, if you prefer?

ANSWER: the aquatic mammal whose name means pig-fish is D. porpoise. Came to English from Old French where the por derived from ‘porc’ meaning pig and poise from ‘peis’ meaning fish. Pigfish. Of course, they’re mammals not fish.

QUESTION 17. Animals produce manure. What is the etymology of manure?

ANSWER: the etymology of ‘manure’ is B. working the land manually. Because that labour often involved strewing dung, to fertilise the soil, the substance got named for the activity. But even though manure has been called manure since the late 16th century, some sense of the fertilizing activity stuck around for about 300 more years, and manure could also mean cultivating the mind. It IS related to manoeuvre etymologically though that word is a few hundred years more recent.


Bonus Old English word for dung beetle: tordwifel meaning "turd weevil."

If you scored 0: better luck next time
If you scored 1-13: not bad
If you scored 14: congratulations!

EXTRA INFORMATION:

  • How chickenpox got its name.

  • Cowardly chickens? Unfair, I say!

  • Alumsionist Haggard Hawks on magpies - “The goldfinch was once nicknamed the King Harry. The barn owl was once the Jenny owl. House sparrows were once Philips, while hedge sparrows were variously known as Mollies, Isaacs, or even Molly Isaacs. And, best of all, the green woodpecker…was once the laughing Betsy.”

  • Shrew facts.

  • How did shrews get such a bad reputation?

  • Different languages’ words for ‘raccoon’. 

  • Etymology of ‘raccoon’ - CW: the piece includes racist etymologies.

  • A vasectomised ferret is called a giblet.

  • The barnacle goose myth.

  • Barnacle reproduction (link is safe for work).

  • How ‘poorly endowed’ gooseneck barnacles do it. Medieval illustration of a barnacle goose being born.

  • Weasel words.

  • Squirrel etymology.

  • Camel etymology.

  • Liger, tigron, leopon, pumapard.

  • Lovely illustrations of an olfend and an olfend-mare.

  • “What is surprising about The Book of Saint Albans is not that it contains words for groups of game animals, but that it contains a number of terms that aren't about the hunt at all: collective nouns for groups of people.”

In audio, quiz Tags words, language, linguistics, education, comedy, entertainment, society & culture, literature, Helen Zaltzman, history, lexicon, vocabulary, culture, arts, etymology, quiz, meatus, animals, creatures, fish, birds, beasts, magpie, Margaret, pie, pica, sexism, Latin, Greek, Old English, parrot, Italian, priest, piebald, skewbald, bald, camelopard, offend, elephant, raccoon, chicken pox, chickens, cowardice, pox, goose barnacles, geese, goose, barnacles, myths, squirrel, cattle, weasel, smell, stinky, ferret, eggs, manure, porpoise, shrews, beshrew, agriculture, poop, dung, bison, polecats, weasel words, chattel, property, real estate, fee, livestock, petunia, penis, genitals, bowels
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