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enthusiast
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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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enthusiast
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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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i'm really interested in animal adjectives in english.---
Avian't ewe herd of simian-larities, Deer?
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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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enthusiast
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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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>is there one for giraffe? sure... giraffine (or giraffish) 
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#4941
08/04/2000 11:00 PM
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thanks tsuwm!
and i was hoping for something i couldn't pronounce, let alone remember!
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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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#4945
08/07/2000 11:59 AM
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>>My apologies to non-British readers who will have no idea what I'm talking about.
Turn about fair play, I suppose.
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#4946
11/25/2000 11:36 PM
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newbie
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newbie
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Rats! I was stuck on squirrely, weaselly, and mousy
Carpe rutila
Carpe whatever
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#4947
12/11/2000 12:24 PM
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Well,ducky, there is also swinish, cocky, foxy, and, of course, fishy.
Bingley
Bingley
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camelopardine, anyone?
Trying to give them up, thanks.
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enthusiast
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About today's word:
[Late Latin bovinus, from Latin bos, cow.]
(Here is another word that refers to cows: vaccine. It comes from
vacca, Latin for cow, after inoculation prepared from cows. -Anu)
There is a difference: bos is a MALE cow, vacca a FEMALE one.
Emanuela
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>bos is a MALE cow, vacca a FEMALE one no bull? But seriously, this is all kind of odd. the major sense of cow in English is "the female of any bovine animal (as the ox, bison, or buffalo); most commonly applied to the female of the domestic species (Bos Taurus)". Bull is most commonly applied to the male of Bos Taurus. cow and bull are also used in the same manner for other large animals (elephant, whale, etc.) In the U.S. cow is used for either sex of Bos Taurus (and the plural is cattle); and, interestingly, 'bossy' is dialect for cow (female) and toro is the Spanish word for bull. ole!
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In the U.S. cow is used for either sex of Bos Taurus (and the plural is cattle)
Well being a city folk-- i use Cows--for the plural too. "look, there are cows in the field" But beyond that, cows are milk cows-- and cattle are beef. So here in NY--on Long Island and upstate NY, dairy country, there are cows in the field. but when i went out to Texas, or cross country-- i saw cattle.
And for me, cows are female-- they have large, obvious udders.. (that how you know they are cows!) sometimes you'll see a bull in a field with some cows.. udderly devoid of cow like looks...
but cattle are those Bos Taurus that are not as obviously sexed--(most of my experience with cows is from a car going 50 m/p/h past a field.. i don't claim to have had much real contact with farm animals.)
With out an large udder, at 50m/p/h, a cow is hard to tell from a bull--and a herd of them become cattle.
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#4953
03/17/2001 12:35 AM
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Pooh-Bah
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pugnacious - characteristic of a pug (by extension, tough, compact or, oddly, acrobatic)
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Just in for a short browse, but I had to log-in to respond to this one because I couldn't believe no one mentioned
serpentine: snakelike (and would you like a nice shiny red apple, Eve?), but actually more in the meaning of a slithery form rather than character.
and, then, of course, so obvious with all the bovine talk (and to quote good ol' Teddy Roosevelt): Bully! We'll have a bully good time!
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Since I brought up bully, I guess I better add bullish, too...as in financial jargon, or feeling sure or solid about something.
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Bearish? Opps, that's a swear word, isn't it? 
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And I sheepishly have to admit forgetting sheepish!
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#4959
04/09/2001 11:50 AM
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Pooh-Bah
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I won't badger you about forgetting .... er, ... badger. And when someone has been soundly defeated in a game of cribbage, he has been skunked. An easy, close-in shot in basketball is a bunny. I shall doggedly pursue more animal terms. Release the hounds! The cat's out of the bag. Buy a pig in a poke. Cat got your tongue? My friend is hen-pecked, but he doesn't crow about it. Quit monkeying around. Quit horsing around. Lookout! Catfight! One of them will be eating crow soon enough. The other will be the scapegoat. Well, I've layed enough eggs, and milked this long enough. What a ham... [and I've segued into the inevitable food thread  ]
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journeyman
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Does anyone else suspect Sparteye's getting a little squirrelly?
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stranger
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stranger
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hi
can anyone tell me the origin of the phrase full monty please
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Pooh-Bah
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OK, Archie. Fess up. [squinting-through-the-fog-of-pseudonym-aliases emoticon]
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enthusiast
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hmmmm..... one doesn't know who anyone is, if someone is signing up repeatedly.
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can anyone tell me the origin of the phrase full monty please
We could, but not here.
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Dear Archie: Since the old timers are so lacking in courtesy to a newcomer, I will send you a private message giving a URL about "full monty".
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I suppose he could be a newcomer -- although there are three(3!) widely dispersed (and more accessible) threads *labeled "full monty", whereas this one is "animal adjectives".... but hey, I'm just a cynical old curmudgeon.
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#4967
06/28/2001 10:17 PM
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Since archie joined us two days ago, and this was his first post, he can fairly be described as a newcomer.
And accordingly entitled to courtesy, which he did not get.
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and that reminds another ole curmudgin', I gotta go an round up a few o them stray christians that wandered in here a while back
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Pooh-Bah
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Dear Dr Bill:
Be assured that if I thought he was a newcomer, I would have greeted Archie with a big welcome. But, I subscribe to the belief that one of the established jokers on the board (Maaaavvv????) has created an alternate identity for the sole purpose of poking fun at the multiple Full Monty threads. It is a funny joke, but one which needed to be called.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Dear Sparteye: You may be quite correct. However it seems a bit infra dig to register a phony name for the purpose of having a corny joke. That could lead to nastiness in the wrong hands, such as addressing insulting remarks to other board members from behind a false front.
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hey, dat's a good idea.... 
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stranger
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thank you for the welcome, doc. i am sure the others don't mean to be nasty, they can't help it
maverick, why do you use so many little silly faces, those yellow things? do you think know one will understand you or something.
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your meaningWhat's your problem, short arse? 
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