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#124119 03/01/04 05:04 AM
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But possum is a variant. Dropped the 'o'. Still no understand.


#124120 03/01/04 07:27 AM
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World net gives it the other way around, saying 'possum' is the animal found in the western hemisphere, and the opossum, that in the Oceana. To cross a couple of threads, it gives 'dissemble' as a synomym for possum (and does not insist on 'to play..') But I'm with Max, anyway, 11 Oscars, and all. What the hell. Now, how did this thread get from animated spinach to (seemingly) inanimate marsupials?

#124121 03/01/04 07:30 AM
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>World net gives it the other way around, saying 'possum' is the animal found in the western hemisphere, and the opossum, that in the Oceana.

That's the way I was taught it, too, but I figured a USn encyclopedia would get it right.


#124122 03/01/04 10:40 AM
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Now, how did this thread get from animated spinach to (seemingly) inanimate marsupials?

Yeah, weird isn't it, how we sometimes meander around here



#124123 03/01/04 01:00 PM
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blame Capt. Cook (1777) for naming the thing as he saw it. possum is the aphetic form, first seen in the U.S. around 1613, some scant years after opossum first appears in the literature (1610).


#124124 03/03/04 05:32 AM
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But was Capt. Cook familiar enough with the appearance of the N. American beastie, and so able to name the Australian beastie after it?

Bingley


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#124125 03/03/04 05:50 AM
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It would be doubtful if Cook knew his ass from his elbow when it came to animals apart from sailors, and perhaps women although he had the rep of being something of a puritan. Who would have known about the Yank version of the beast would have been Joseph Banks, his naturalist. That guy was one bright, well-informed and talented cookie ...


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