Walrus

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Dr. Goodword
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Walrus

Postby Dr. Goodword » Tue Apr 04, 2023 7:58 pm

• walrus •


Pronunciation: wawl-rês • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Noun

Meaning: A fat, seal-like marine animal (Odobenus rosmarus, family Odobenidae), some weighing around two tons, with two tusks and stiff whiskers around its mouth.

Notes: This word has a fascinating origin (for which see Word history). Since the meaning is so narrow, it hasn't any derivational family. There are also no pronunciation or spelling problems associated with it.

Image

In Play: It is hard to creatively think up sentences with this word: "Lucinda Head brought her pet baby walrus to the party and it was a big hit." This word may, however, be used figuratively in reference to anything extraordinarily fat: "On pay day my wallet is as fat as a walrus."

Word History: Today's Good Word, like hippopotamus, which in Greek literally means "river-horse", in Old Germanic meant "whale-horse". In Old English this animal was called a horschwæl "horse-whale", but English switched this word out in favor of Dutch walrus, combining wal + rus. Wal descended from PIE kwalo- "large fish, whale". [k] became [h] in Germanic languages, which explains whale (pronounced [hwayl], Norwegian hval, German Wal, and Swedish val. Rus is related to German Ross "steed, horse" and Dutch ros "steed, horse", which go back to PIE kers-/kors- "runner, cart", which became hrusa- "horse" in Old Germanic and turned up in English as horse. (Now, a note of gratitude to Mike Nichols for suggesting today's Good Word, which shows how our ancestors originally classified walruses.)
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Slava
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Re: Walrus

Postby Slava » Fri Jul 14, 2023 11:56 am

Sorry, but I just have to:

Coo, Coo, Cachoo. Which I only just this minute learned is actually "goo goo ga joob."
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