The Complete Dinosaur -Reply

["Augustus Toby White" <toby.white@chamberlainlaw.com>]

>>> Shuko Funaki <shuko@sa2.so-net.ne.jp> 04/13/99 12:46pm >>>
<<I've been translating "The Complete Dinosaur" (Indiana University Press) into 
Japanese with several other translators and I have a question regarding one 
passage in Part Three.>>
[snip]
<<  As once remarked by that eminent philosopher Sportin' Life, in an
entirely different context: It ain't necessarily so.  There were many
kinds of big, extinct animals (including reptiles) that were not
dinosaurs at all, and there are all kinds of big living reptiles that
aren't dinosaurs, either.>>

<<I can't understand "by that eminent philosopher Sportin' Life, in an
entirely different context" part.>>

<<1) Does anyone know what this means?

You should be asking musicians, not paleontologists.  Sportin' Life is the name 
of a character in George Gershwin's opera, "Porgy and Bess."  He sings a famous 
aria called "It Ain't Necessarilly So" which is about the fallacies of the 
popular culture of the time (among other things).  

  --Toby White