Disputatio:Stephanus Irwin

Latin for "stingray"

OK, Iacobus rightly corrected me on two counts. With regards to Lyn and Bob, well, I just have to plead sleep deprevation. Sorry! As for "stingray," I looked into this and found out I had conflated two Latin forms of this word: trīgŏnus -i, m., and trȳgōn -ōnis, m.. Both of these are borrowed from Greek τρυγών, the native Latin name being pastĭnāca. Of course pastinaca litterally means "parsnip" (or "carrot")... and you know, you can totally see the resemblance or something. Many, perhaps even most, Latin names of sea-creatures are secondary uses of other words, cf. locusta (grasshopper or scampi shrimp), canis (dog; shark), urtica (nettle; sea anemone), pecten (comb; scallop). In general, these words can (and for article-titling purposes should) be distinguished fromt their landlubbin' counterparts by adding a form of the adjective marinus -a -um, thus locusta marina, canis marinus, and so on. (Of course this only applies to sea creatures: I'm not 100% sure what to do with their river-dwellng counterparts.) --Iustinus 21:39, 5 Septembris 2006 (UTC)