guano

Use this forum to suggest Good Words for Professor Beard.
bnjtokyo
Lexiterian
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Joined: Thu Jul 07, 2016 7:16 pm

guano

Postby bnjtokyo » Sun May 28, 2023 5:24 am

Bbeeton recently posted a link to a webpage that was a little confused as to what a "Native American Language" might be. Then I read an article in The New Yorker than mentioned inter alia that Alexander von Humboldt introduced the use of guano as fertilizer to Europe and that the word "guano" comes from Quechua, which, I believe, is a genuine "Native (South) American Language." Here is what Etymonline has to say about the etymology

c. 1600, from Spanish guano "dung, fertilizing excrement," especially of sea-birds on islands off Peru, from Quechua (Inca) huanu "dung."

bbeeton
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Re: guano

Postby bbeeton » Sun May 28, 2023 9:48 am

Quechua is indeed a native (South) American language family, and an important one too, as the principal language family of the Inca empire. Many speakers of a Quechua language still populate that area.

But my immediate mental association with "guano" is Bat Guano, one of the officers at the nuclear deployment base in the movie Dr. Strangelove. That flick was a marvelously satirical look at the Cold War, at the same time scary and hilarious. (The doctor was referred to by some of my more bemused colleagues as "Herr Doktor Fremdenliebe".)

Alexander von Humboldt's career is also well worth investigation. The Humboldt Current, the principal cold-water current of the eastern Pacific, is named in his honor, as are Humboldt penguins.


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