As you might have inferred from last week’s column, which explored the influence of comic strips and comic books on our American language, I am a fan-addict of the comics. I truly believe that this art form shines a bright light on our hopes and aspirations, our dreams and our striving and our fears and failures in America. The U-T carries a prodigious and profound lineup of more than 40 comic strips, and I enjoy seeing how the creators each day are able to ravel out a gag or plot twist within the brief compass of one to four panels.
One of my favorite U-T strips is Bob Hanon’s “Mission: San Diego.” It’s cockles-warming to see a local talent make good, and Bob’s humor and visuals, set within a single panel each Sunday, are unfailingly spot on. A few weeks back, Bob presented an episode from “Behind the Scenes: The San Diego Zoo Koala Compound.” A daddy and mommy koala inform their cub: “Sweetheart, it’s time you knew the truth. We’re not bears.”
That is indeed the scientific truth. Because they look like teddy bears, many of us call the cuddly critters koala bears, but they’re not at all related to bears. They’re marsupials. Like kangaroos, the koala mom carries her young (sometimes called a cub, but more accurately called a joey) in her pouch. On the other paw, a sign at the San Diego Zoo explains that, according to DNA testing, pandas, which were once identified as marsupials, are actually bears.
The point is to beware and be wary of what labels you attach to our fellow creatures that run and gallop, creep and crawl, fly and glide, swoop and dive, leap and hop and burrow and swim around our planet.
The Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean got their name from what animal?
“Canaries, of course!” you chirp.
The answer is dogs. The Canary Islands were so dubbed after the large dogs (canes grandes) found there. The familiar yellow songbirds, also native creatures thereabout, were named after the islands, rather than the other way around.
What did one cat say to the other while they were watching a tennis match? “My mother’s in that racket.” Har har, but that’s not accurate. In our shifty and wifty English vocabulary we discover that catgut is actually sheep and horse intestines and that camel’s hair brushes are made from squirrel fur.
A ladybug is not a bug but a beetle — and all ladybugs are not female. Similarly, a firefly is actually a lightning bug, which is also a beetle. I love it when etymology and entomology coalesce.
Turns out that a veritable menagerie of animals are not what their names indicate. Take the hedgehog and the porcupine. Light verse master Bob McKenty explains the truth about the spiny insectivores:
No matter what their name alleges,
Hedgehogs aren’t hogs or hedges.
(Like kindred quadrupeds with spines
Who aren’t porks and aren’t pines.)
What’s in a beastly name? Not what you may think. The guinea pig is a South American rodent. It is neither a pig nor from Guinea. A prairie dog is not a dog; it too is a rodent. The horned toad is a lizard, not a toad, and a silkworm is a caterpillar, not a worm. (Have you heard about the two silkworms that decided to race each other? They ended up in a tie.)
The blackbird hen is brown, purple finches are distinctly crimson and many greyhounds come in colors other than gray. That’s because the grey in greyhound descends from an Old Norse word that means “female.”
Half of peacocks are actually peahens, else they couldn’t propagate. A titmouse is neither mammal nor mammaried; it’s a bird. A crawfish isn’t a fish; it’s a spiny lobster, and a jackrabbit isn’t a rabbit; it’s a hare. Blindworms are actually legless lizards, and, of course, they can see.
Go figure.
Please send your questions and comments about language to richard.lederer@utsandiego.com