Re: dinosaur flatware

[Karen Seo <kseo@BBN.COM>]

Norm,

Well, I'd be delighted to use a "better" term than dinosaurs, but I
don't know of one.  "Prehistoric monsters" is too long and no one would
know what I meant.  Pragmatically speaking, the only way I can think of
to achieve accurate matching of term to usage would be to rename the
category scientifically called dinosaur to something else and leave the
word dinosaur with the meaning that it has in everyday English.  In the
meantime, any suggestions for how to meaningfully (to the average
listener) refer to prehistoric reptile-like creatures would be most
welcome.  At this point, dinosaur works really well and anything else
tends to confuse/mislead most folks.  

I'm aware the word dinosaur is mis-used but ignorant of the correct
usage.  So just for the record, what is the definition for "dinosaur"?

Thanks,
Karen