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Mastodon

Posted: Fri Feb 03, 2006 8:29 pm
by Brazilian dude
Main Entry: mas·to·don
Pronunciation: 'mas-t&-"dän, -d&n
Function: noun
Etymology: New Latin mastodont-, mastodon, from Greek mastos + odont-, odOn, odous tooth -- more at TOOTH
1 : any of numerous extinct mammals (genus Mastodon syn. Mammut) that differ from the related mammoths and existing elephants chiefly in the form of the molar teeth
2 : one that is unusually large
Knowing that mastos in Greek means breast and odontos means tooth, does that mean that the mastodon is an animal with a tooth on its breast? :?

Brazilian dude

Posted: Sat Feb 04, 2006 12:40 am
by Stargzer
No, a bit more of the opposite! :D

From the Online Etymology Dictionary:
mastodon
1813, from Mod.L. genus name Mastodon (1806), coined by Georges Cuvier from Gk. mastos "breast" + odont- "tooth," so called from the nipple-like projections on the crowns of the extinct mammal's fossil molars.
In 1953, an electrician working in the basement of a building in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, unearthed a grey and white stone about the size of a large grapefruit. The basement was in a building that had belonged to one of the architects of American independence: Benjamin Franklin. The object was a fossilized mastodon tooth.
Picture: Benjamin Franklin's Mastodon Tooth.

More pictures.

And, an article on "Peale’s Mastodon: The Skeleton in our Closet."

Posted: Sat Feb 04, 2006 3:51 pm
by Brazilian dude
Well, I wasn't impressed by these tits. Oh, I know why, they didn't have boob jobs back then.

Brazilian dude

Posted: Sat Feb 04, 2006 10:23 pm
by tcward
BD's always looking for topics like this he can sink his teeth into...

-Tim

Posted: Sat Feb 04, 2006 10:25 pm
by Brazilian dude
And topics that I can rub in people's faces.

Brazilian dude

Posted: Sat Feb 04, 2006 10:27 pm
by Brazilian dude
Which reminds me of Vic VapoRub. When I was kid (and didn't know English), I never understood why they had come up with such a nonsense name: VEE-kee vah-poh-ROO-bee. Only now do I get it. :wink:

Brazilian dude

Re: Mastodon

Posted: Tue Jan 30, 2024 1:42 pm
by Slava
Digging deep into prehistoric times, dredging this one up. The word was mentioned in Alexandra Petri's live chat with readers, so I looked for it here. It's a great one for treatment, I'd say, so I'm suggesting it.

Re: Mastodon

Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2024 11:08 pm
by bbeeton
The link to the article, "Peale's Mastodon: The Skeleton in Our Closet", is broken. But the article can be found at https://commonplace.online/article/peal ... ur-closet/.

I "grew up" with Peale's painting, "Exhumation of the Mastodon", being taken frequently to the Peale Museum in Baltimore by my schoolteacher mother, and was fascinated. Imagine my shock when, attending a conference in Darmstadt and visiting the natural history museum, I came face to face with ... Peale's very own mastodon! (Well, the skeleton anyhow.) Images of the painting and the story of the skeleton's progression from upstate New York via Philadelphia to Darmstadt are easily findable online. It's a good story.