Thingies and the missing "S"

[jdharris@lust.isem.smu.edu (Jerry D. Harris)]

At 12:26 AM 9/20/95, Robert G. Tuck Jr. wrote:
>At 10:31 AM 9/19/95 -0400, Jerry D. Harris wrote:
>> abstracts thingy
>
>     I must add this highly technical term to my growing list of
>palaeo-talk, which also includes "buttload," thanks to TH. Let's see . . .
>"Harris, Holtz, and Olshevsky revealed in a recent _JVP_ abstracts thingy
>that they were about to revamp *Ceratopian* phylogeny, based upon their
>in-depth analyses of a whole buttload of new material."

        Hey, why stop there?  8-)  How 'bout:  "...revealed in a recent
whatchamacallit abstracts thingy that they were about to revamp
_CeratopSian_ phylogeny, based upon their really neat study of a whole
buttload of stuff."

        BTW, now that Lockley & Hunt have formally described the
ceratopsian footprints from Colorado as _Ceratopsipes_, what does everyone
think?  I personally find that name _much_ more euphonius than
_Ceratopipes_.  Leave that darned "s" in there!!!  Technicalities be
damned...rules are meant to be broken.  It's not as if English has the best
track record for following its own rules, anyway...  ;-)



Jerry D. Harris
Shuler Museum of Paleontology
Southern Methodist University
Box 750395
Dallas  TX  75275-0395
(214) 768-2750
FAX:  (214) 768-2701
jdharris@lust.isem.smu.edu
        (Compuserve:  73132,3372)

---------/O\------*     --->|:|:|>     w___/^^^\--o

"If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and
quacks like a duck, then it is the sister taxon to,
but cannot parsimoniously be, the direct ancestor
to all other ducks."

                                --  _not_ W. Hennig

---------/O\------*     --->|:|:|>     w___/^^^\--o