Here's a news flash:
I went to a zoo last week and saw a couple of very old, very hairy bactrian camels.
Now let's say you draw a representation of a bactrian camel. Oh, you'd probably draw those humps with lovely rounded curves, right? Well, wrong in the case of these elderly camels.
One, whose humps were still functional, I suppose, had two sharp triangles on its back--sharp-peaked, but somewhat flabby humps, not curved at all. Think: side of a pyramid rather than curve.
The other, a truly elderly fellow, had humps that hung at its side like saddlebags, no joke. Those humps were long past their standing up days. It was pitiful to me, somehow, to see those humps hanging their triangular selves over on the side of the belly of that bactrian. Embarrassing somehow. Of course, in the camelian way of thinking I guess hanging humps could be viewed something akin to a badge of honor or an old man's beard. Hope it wasn't a female. It would be a shame to think of those saggy humps as an old woman's beard.
the shape of the hump is made up of a cartalidge like material.. and like human noses, that often get more hooked as they get older from the cartalidge stretching over time, camal's humps tend to topple and fall to the right or left as they get older.
zoo animals (even when used for camal rides, as the bronx zoo uses them) are so well cared for, they out live their cousins--as domestic camels out live wild ones, zoo animals outlive domestic ones (on average). the slow leasurely pace of a 'camel ride', even with out of weight adults riding, is till less than the ton of goods a working camel might have to carry, up and down dunes, or hills, for months, on short rations...
zoo animals have shorter working hours, less to carry, and better rations.. and live long enough for their humps to collape!
Whew, Wordwind, you had me worried there. My screen showed almost your whole post in one piece. All that was missing was the two-word last line. I didn't think the last word was going to be beard!
Honi soit etc.
Dear Zed: were you thinking of Nicholas in the Miller's Tale?
Zed's Screen: Ha!
I sure wish someone had some way I could send you the digital photographs of those two camels so you all could see them, particularly the one whose humps are hanging at
its sides...a site where everybody could take a look.
send them to me, WW, and I'll put them up:
roger@rogergrow.com
I'll send them to you this afternoon, et'. I just read your message, but must get ready to go up to Concord to play for the morning service--and haven't practiced my hymns!
Thanks very much for doing so. I have two photos in particular that should show the peaked humps that are standing up like pryamids and one of the old geezer camel whose humps have collapsed.
okey-dokey!
the pics are up!
http://www.rogergrow.com/awad/camels.htmlif you think of clever captions, let me know, I'll post 'em!
We used to make bactrian camels when I was in college the first time around. We would take two regular Camels, strip the paper off and roll them into one paper. For those for whom a regular Camel didn't pack enough of a jolt.
Dear etaoin. Thanks for posting the pictures. The poor humfallen critter would really make the Sphinx smile.
Dear et'...
Sorry I've been so long getting bactrian here, but thanks very much for posting the photographs--and for trimming them a bit to get more directly to the camels themselves! I think those photographs do show well how trigular the still-standing humps of the one bactrian are, and the fallen humps on the other are very easy to see, also. They do look pitiful, don't they, especially since they were shedding their winter coats!
Best regards,
Wordwind
you're welcome. I wonder if he can flip them from side to side, or if he gets frustrated having them hang like that... "ooh, I got an itch!"...
trigular
hafta look this one up...
Don't waste your time. It was my fingers moving too fast over the keyboard. I do this kind of thing all the time on AWAD, which is really inexcusable. I should edit more carefully.
But trigular is a very nice word, even though I don't think it exists. It seems to cover anything that has to do with 3. Then we could have bigular. Marriages. Generally bigular. And we could have tetrigular. And so on.
Now back to the bactrian: It has bigular humps.
It has bigular humpsand a bit sagular...
Bigular? Not by the hair on my chinny chin chin!
"English gular Behind the chin and between the sides of the lower jaw.
and here's a nonce usage from Fraser's Magazine; guess what was meant:
The second.. was.. the founder of a gular academy, distinguishing himself by his treatise de opsoniis et condimentis.
have we gone from camels to a food thread?
When I was very small, adults used to hold a buttercup under a child's chin. A gular golden glow meant a fondness for butter.
a gular academy
regular? guitar? hey, I think you may have the germ of a new game ;)
can I play the jug in your gular band?
his treatise de opsoniis et condimentis.
No doubt a copy of which will enventual be cataloged here:
http://www.clearfour.com/condiment
In reply to:
have we gone from camels to a food thread?
Well, gula is the Indonesian for sugar
Bingley
No doubt a copy of which will enventual be cataloged here
A museum of condiment wrappers??? Good grief.
I just remembered "jugular". There must be a relationship with "gular". Did you think of this first, etaoin?
yeah, that's what I was getting at. since gular means throat, it seemed logical. not sure what the "ju" part is about, though. gular is from gula, and jugular from jugularis, so...
The Bactrian camel’s two humps
Started out as triangular bumps;
But no longer at best,
They slipped over her chest ~
She’s depressed her sex life has so slumped!
Mav'! After a little choke here, I must ask: Do you think the poor beast was really a she?
He has a 50% chance of being right... with odds like that, i'd buy a lottery ticket!