A character in today's Opus comic is sleepless one night as these questions race through his brain:

• Why do "thaw" and "unthaw" mean the same thing?
• If an Africann elephant comes to America, is he an African-American elephant?
• If it's tourist season, why can't we shoot them?
• If atheletes [sic] get athlete's foot, do astronauts get mistle toe?

These are a cute set of things to worry a penguin (or a puffin). Sort of along the lines of why do we park in a driveway, but drive on a parkway? Or what is the etymology of penguin? Besides thaw and unthaw there is also dethaw.

Tweety Bird: "I tought I thaw a puddy tat."

I have only seen "thaw" used. I could see "unthaw" meaning "to freeze," though common sense would prevent me from having that notion. Still, I am a literalist so "unthaw" logically means "to freeze," to me.

I have a friend who says "unthaw" and I never noticed it until recently. "ravel" and "unravel" mean the same as well.

quote:

Originally posted by zmježd:
These are a cute set of things to worry a penguin (or a puffin). What is the etymology of penguin?

I seem to recall that penguinoriginally referred to the (now extinct) Great Auk (pinguinus impennis)of the North Atlantic. (There are the Penguin Islands at about 47N 57W with not a penguin within 10,000 km.) The word may originally have been "pinwing" in reference to the bird's flightlessness. They became extinct in the 1840's but by that time English-speaking sailors had transferred the name to the very similar looking penguins of the southern oceans.

Five questions put to two desperate men by a nine-year-old in The Ransom of Red Chief by O. Henry....questions that I've pondered for forty-five years...
1. Does the trees moving make the wind blow?
2. Are the stars hot?
3. Do oxen make any noise?
4. Why are oranges round?
5. How many does it take to make twelve?

quote:

Originally posted by Duncan Howell:
I seem to recall that penguinoriginally referred to the (now extinct) Great Auk (pinguinus impennis)of the North Atlantic. (There are the Penguin Islands at about 47N 57W with not a penguin within 10,000 km.) The word may originally have been "pinwing" in reference to the bird's flightlessness. They became extinct in the 1840's but by that time English-speaking sailors had transferred the name to the very similar looking penguins of the southern oceans.

An alternative etymology is that it comes from the Welsh pen gwyn "white head". I don't know which is correct.

What does it look like to be gruntled or combobulated?

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An alternative etymology is that it comes from the Welsh pen gwyn "white head". I don't know which is correct.

Nor do I know which is correct, but I have an issue with the etymology given in the American Heritage Dictionary link. I suspect that they haven't done their homework on this one: White Head Island is in the Bay of Fundy in New Brunswick, and not in Newfoundland as stated. I can't really say what the connection could be to either the Welsh or the Great Auk.

quote:

Originally posted by Duncan Howell:
Nor do I know which is correct, but I have an issue with the etymology given in the American Heritage Dictionary link. I suspect that they haven't done their homework on this one: White Head Island is in the Bay of Fundy in New Brunswick, and not in Newfoundland as stated. I can't really say what the connection could be to either the Welsh or the Great Auk.

Interesting. The Online Etymology Dictionary says the word was originally used for the extinct Great Auk of Newfoundland. They says it's of unknown origin but "often asserted" to be from Welsh.

The Oxford Etymological says "unknown origin" but mentions the "superficial resemblance to Welsh pen gwyn" and says it's been suggested that this means that Breton fisherman first used the name.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: goofy,

This thread began by mentioning "[a] character in today's Opus comic". The title character of that comic, one Opus, is a penguin. Is it coincidental that we are now discussing the etymology of the word 'penguin'?


quote: What does it look like to be gruntled?
Very interesting. See word-of-the-day here.

The title character of that comic, one Opus, is a penguin. Is it coincidental that we are now discussing the etymology of the word 'penguin'?

That was the thrust of the allusion in my response to yours supra. In the earlier Bloom County, when Opus had yet to get his name, there was a bit of a controversy that Breathed's penguin looked more like a puffin.

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4. Why are oranges round?

It can be shown that certain flowers grow their petals in a ratio which is exactly the Golden Ratio. There are a number of explanations for this, including maximizing growth while minimizing overlap(since overlapping petals compete). There are possible mathematical reasons for the shape of oranges, where the biological processes must optimize some geometric equation.

A sphere is the solid which maximizes volume while minimizing surface area. It is not really surprising that structures where volume is a plus, but requiring a special or protective exterior; such as eggs, fruit, nuts, craniums, many cacti; tend to be round.

Furthermore, a sphere is the shape that is strongest, since pressure on any part is transmitted with little bending force to the adjacent surfaces.

A cuboid egg would probably break under the weight of the bird that was incubating it (as well as bringing tears to her eyes when she laid it!)

quote:

originally posted by goofy:

Interesting. The Online Etymology Dictionary says the word was originally used for the extinct Great Auk of Newfoundland. They says it's of unknown origin but "often asserted" to be from Welsh.

The Oxford Etymological says "unknown origin" but mentions the "superficial resemblance to Welsh pen gwyn" and says it's been suggested that this means that Breton fisherman first used the name.

I've been digging a little deeper into the history of penguin and I'll summarize my interpretation of the material:
Everyone with an opinion agrees that the word originally referred to the, now extinct, Great Auk ( Pinguinus impennis)of the North Atlantic, and not the various penguins of the southern oceans. There, agreement stops. Several dictionaries, American Heritage among them, repeat the notion that it's from the Welsh "pen gwyn" meaning "white head" and that the name was so used by Breton fishermen. Arguing against that, the OED finds "obvious historical difficulties" in attributing it to the Welsh via the Bretons. OED also notes that Great Auks had precious little white on their heads. Another negative is that "pen" in Welsh does indeed mean "head" but in the sense of "leader". But there are problems with the OED version of events. Their earliest citation is Hakluyt's Voyages (1578) but the Dictionary of Newfoundland English dates the original manuscript to 1536. The OED does not support the theory that the word comes from Latin pinguis (fat). (The birds were driven to extinction by being slaughtered on their breeding islands and rendered for fat.) The Latin 'pinguis' suggestion, and the "pinwing" suggestion are considered by OED to be "merely unsupported conjectures". However,consider the following excerpt from Canadian Naturalist (1870): "Almost the sole object of my visiting the island (my note: Funk Island, called in many old manuscripts Penguin Island, at 49.44N 53.10W) was to collect further information (about) this bird,--which is called 'Pinwing' by the settlers, and not Penguin,as Audubon informs us..." Funk Island never had any settlers, so the reference is to the nearby Newfoundlanders who were around in the 1500's and could very well have named the bird "pinwing". Why the European name "garefowl" never stuck is another mystery.

What do I think? "Penguin" probably comes from "Pinwing."
Bottom line: Nobody really knows.

quote:

Originally posted by Richard English:
Furthermore, a sphere is the shape that is strongest, since pressure on any part is transmitted with little bending force to the adjacent surfaces.

My Physics-major teenager suggests that domes are considerably stronger than spheres. I don't really have an opinion.

A dome is simply a hemisphere (half a sphere). It is a better design for a roof than a sphere since the loadings are fairly constant and uni-directional.

An enclosed dome would be a quite hopeless for any body where the loadings were omni-directional, since the flat surface would be far weaker than the curved surface.

If you want an up-close-and-personal demonstration of just how strong a near-sphere shape is, just hold a raw egg in your hand.

Press hard at one spot, with the tip of a finger, and it will shatter. It's thin.

But if you wrap your fingers and palm around it and press in from all sides simultaneously, you'll find that you can't crush it, though you squeeze as hard as you can. Notwithstanding its thinness, the shape makes it very strong against pressure coming from all sides.

We use egg shells for a fun program prop at the library sometimes. We'll take five domes from broken egg shells, 4 of which are purposely broken so they have fairly even edges and can be placed open-end-down on a table. The fifth we'll have a kid come up and break to smithereens into the trash. Then we'll start piling books up on top of the 4 domes on the table. It's fun to do that as you book-talk the books or read them, and each book adds suspense. I've seen upwards of 10 books on top of those domes before one shatters. It's really fun and it demonstrates the strength of the dome quite well.

It is a fact of physics that most solid materials are very strong in compression but very weak in tension. It wasn't until the development of steel and then synthetics like nylon that many materials were produced that were strong in tension.

This is why most solids are not good under bending stresses, since one side will be under tension and the other under compression. The tensed side will fail quickly and the crack will spread rapidly through the entire piece.

To avoid tension cracking, the Romans invented the arch, which meant that all the the brickwork of the a structure was in compression. A properly built arch will stand and support considerable weight, even without there being any mortar between its stones or bricks. Developments of the Roman arch are still used today - a dome being simply a special form of arch.

quote:

Originally posted by Duncan Howell:
I've been digging a little deeper into the history of penguin and I'll summarize my interpretation of the material:

For what it's worth, my Newfoundland friend says that there is a White Head in Newfoundland, in the area where the Welsh settlers were expected to have settled. There weren't many Welsh settlers, but there were some.

Also, "pen" is Welsh for "human or animal head" according to this dictionary.