RE: CLUNICULUS

["Jaime A. Headden" <qilongia@yahoo.com>]

I'm a proper American bred lad, and well, I hope
Mickey doesn't censor me for this (or Augustus White),
but here goes:

Augustus T. White wrote:

<You will probably think I'm kidding. In fact, I hope
I've made a mistake. However, assuming the roots are
Latin, the closest I can come is "asshole". That is,
its a combination of two similar Latin words (clunis,
culus), both of which refer to the human posterior. 
This sort of redundancy is a pretty common way of
expressing emphasis in IE languages, e.g.
"super-duper," "mishmash."  Thus, not just "butt," but
"asshole.">

  Okay, considering that the holotype is a pretty good
looking sacrum without ribs, let's not carry this
thing too far. My references locate _clunis_ as (Lat.)
"buttock," so I would be tempted to suggest it refers
to either the pelvic canal (which exits you know
where) or the hip in general. A literal translation
(noting my Latin is bad) might be "large hip" or
"large butt".

  As for the ICZN, at the time the animal was named,
there was none.

===
- Greek proverb: "Knowledge is Inherent;
  Stupidity is Learned." -

Jaime A. Headden

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