A few nights ago, I was again reminded on the uniqueness of my name. I was asked "what do your parents do, are they like archeologists or something?" To which I responded "no" and told them the current positions my parents held. The person asked again if they were archeologists or paleontologists. I didn't see where this was going and repeated "no" again. Then said person commented on my name, to which I replied, "What's wrong with my name?" The response was, "With a name like yours, it just sounds like your parents ought to have studied dinosaurs or something." By this point I finally get where this is going--Triceratops!
I was first informed of my apparent namesake, by a grandmother, my sophomore year of undergrad. She said every time she heard my name she was reminded of the dinosaur her grandkids played with. I thought it was great! Not everyone has a dinosaur nickname or even name!
For a little paleontology lessoon: Triceratops are native to North America; they are herbivores and most notably have a large frill and three horns attached to the head. Triceratops literally means "three-horned face" (greek origin). They were rather large animals, small I suppose, compared the T-rex, but large compard to animals around today. Dimensions: ~27 ft in length, ~9.5 ft in height, and weighing 6-12 tons. If you've seen specimens in museums, they are rather amazing. All dinosaurs are really! They ate mostly low lying plants and had 430-800 teeth, which suggests that they ate palms and cycads! The theories surrounding the purpose of the horns include combat and social display and behaviour.
There is also a dinosaur type species named ceratops (pronounced SER-uh-TOPS) meaning "horn face". They are similar to the Triceratops in most things, save for the number of horns.
This whole post is amusing to me! A homonym is a word that is spelled differently, sounds the same, but has a different meaning or somebody with the same name as somebody else. A hominid is a member of the primate order, including human beings. Our names are relatively similar, homonym, and I'm a hominid!
I suppose this post makes more sense to those who know my name, for those who don't, take a wild guess!
No comments:
Post a Comment