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i'm not sure if this is the right place to start this one,
but i'm really interested in animal adjectives in english.
words like ursine, bovine, aquiline.
i'd really love to hear from the resident geniuses - geniii? - who can add to my quotidian knowledge.
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Equine, feline...
I don't know how usual they sound in English...
An American man - trying to speak Italian - once said to me that English is two parallel languages; for a word there are often two forms - for example, speed and velocity - and the less usual form is that coming from latin...
Do you agree?
Ciao
Emanuela
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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i'm really interested in animal adjectives in english.---
Avian't ewe herd of simian-larities, Deer?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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I have a resource book somewhere which has a whole list of these, but here are a few that have stuck with me:
anserine - characteristic of a goose; (by extension) silly
hircine - characteristic of a goat, esp its odor
vulpine - characteristic of a fox; foxy, crafty
limacine - characteristic of a slug
and, in a stretch, sphingine - sphinx-like in character
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you have a resource book?
you ARE a resource book!
wish i was one tsu.
without throwing me in the YCLIP basket (cos i tried), is there one for giraffe?
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Carpal Tunnel
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>is there one for giraffe? sure... giraffine (or giraffish) 
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thanks tsuwm!
and i was hoping for something i couldn't pronounce, let alone remember!
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Carpal Tunnel
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Leslie Dunkling's "Guiness Book of Curious Words" gives a list of -ine adjectives. He doesn't mention anything for giraffes, but does give lots of others, e.g.:
bombycine, didelphine, soricine, trochilidine, and turdine (which seems most unfair, somehow).
Bingley
Bingley
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>turdine (which seems most unfair, somehow).
yes, unfair to thrushes everywhere!
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but not perhaps to thrush. or boom boom as a certain vulpine used to say. My apologies to non-British readers who will have no idea what I'm talking about. Bingley
Bingley
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