Fearfully Great, not Terrible!!

[Thomas_R_HOLTZ@umail.umd.edu (th81)]

> "Dinosaur" mean "terrible lizard" but not "terrible" in the bad
>sense but "terrible" in the awesome sense
>
Actually, for those who bother to read Owen 1842 (a reference often cited
but rarely read, as they say :-) ), Sir Richard does NOT use "deinos" to
mean "terrible".  He specifically says "deinos" means "fearfully great" (or,
in today's speech, "fearfully big"), and goes to to say they are named such
since they "far surpass in size all living reptiles".

Nitpickingly yours,

Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
Vertebrate Paleontologist
Dept. of Geology
University of Maryland
College Park, MD  20742
Email:Thomas_R_HOLTZ@umail.umd.edu (th81)
Fax: 301-314-9661
Phone:301-405-4084