While whiling the midnight hours in motels down South on a research trip, I happened upon a nature show about cephalopods in general and squids in particular.

One of the cephalopods that I had thought was a squid, wasn't:

the cuttlefish.

Now the cuttlefish, though closely related to a squid, could be trained to write, no joke. This little chubby, octopus-like cephalopod was a master of disguise, making itself look exactly like whatever coral or sandy bottom by which it was hiding to catch a little fishy swimming by. But the cuttlefish had such a hearty appetite that if the human trainer showed it a surface covered with 'x's' and then gave it a fish...well, after a while that cuttlefish would cover itself with an 'x' so that it would receive a fish. Ha! One of the oldest cuttlefish--a very old man cuttlefish of about a year and a half in age--could form a 'z' on its back to receive a fish.

But most of the show was devoted to the giant squid, the six-foot specimen being the object of all the diving. I won't tell you all the whole show, although I would love to. I just want to mention two things about the squid:

1. It could blink on and off the apparent colors of blue and red--on and off from blue to red (or something like that, factoring in TV distortion), but quite rapidly. It was Las Vegas beneath the waves. Two squids would park right next to each other and just blink on and off--and not for anything sexual.

2. When a squid was hooked by a fisherman, the other squids would immediately surround it and begin to eat it. Quite carnivorous squids.

My theory: I think those squids blink away to let each other know that they are alive, well, and unhooked. I think they blink so they won't be et.

What does this have to do with words? Well, cephalopod means 'head foot,' which you probably already knew, but I had to slide these stories in sideways.

Faldage: You should have seen the beak on the six-foot squid! It was twice as big as the beak on your average Macaw.

I liked the story (true, they had it on tape) of the octopus who waited until the lab was closed at night, slid/slithered/slipped out of his tank, crossed the dry table and crept/crawled/corruscated into the tank of live crabs that were his food source, to have a late night snack. The scientists taped this because they thought the cleaners were feeding him but no-one would admit it. They couldn't tell what was really happening because the octopus always did take-away. He WENT BACK TO HIS OWN TANK with the crab before eating.
Very cool animals.

Dear WW: I looked up "cepahalopod" and was surprised to find they are in the phylum Mollusca. I looked up "molluck"
and got another surprise.
mol[lusk 7m9l4!sk8
n.
5Fr mollusque < ModL Mollusca, coined by CUVIER < L mollusca, a soft-shelled nut < molluscus, soft < mollis: see MOLLIFY6 any of a large phylum (Mollusca) of invertebrate animals, including the chitons, gastropods, cephalopods, scaphopods, and bivalves characterized by a soft, unsegmented body, typically enclosed wholly or in part in a mantle and a calcareous shell, and usually having gills and a foot
mol[lus[kan 7m! lus4k!n8
adj., n.
So I looked up scaphopod:
scaphopod
n.
5< Gr skaphos, a ship (see prec.) + 3POD6 any of a class (Scaphopoda) of mollusks that live in muddy or sandy sea bottoms and have slightly curved, tubular shells open at both ends with a long, pointed, protrusile foot at the larger end

That reminded me of scaphoid,one of the small wrist bones:
scaphoid
adj., n.
5ModL scaphoides < Gr skaphoeidcs < skaphos, boat, hollow shell (< base of skaptein, to hollow out < IE base *(s)kap3, to split, hollow out > SHAPE) + 3eides, 3OID6 NAVICULAR

And then, since "navicular" means like a boat, I had light turn on in my foggy brain:
that scaphoid must have the root that gave us "skiff", whih is a boat, such as a rowboat. My dictionary doesn't verify this, but I'll kiss a pig if I'm wrong.

Lucky pig, if you are, and thanks for all this very cool information.

How can an octopus be a mollusk if it doesn't have a shell? I'm going to go Google a bit on this topic myself right now...back later.

Sowrong! Pucker up, Bill...


Skiff

PRONUNCIATION: sk f
NOUN: A flatbottom open boat of shallow draft, having a pointed bow and a square stern and propelled by oars, sail, or motor.
ETYMOLOGY: Middle English skif, from Old French esquif, from Old Italian schifo, of Germanic origin. {e.a.}

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Humpin Hoggs Company.

Perhaps the Germanic origin of skiff and the Greek skaphos have a common Indo European etymon?

Secretary General of the Pig Protection Society.

Bingley

SGPPS ~ rotflmao!

Piglets can be very cute and cuddly. Cute pets if you don't get Mama upset. Better than letting a dog llick you after it has licked its rear end.

Piglets can be very cute and cuddly...

You sure you wanna be sharing this, Bill ~ could be one of your rasher moves!

Aww, he's just hamming it up.

Dear mav: My wife took a piglet with her to the hospital to show it to some of her patients. She left it in her office.
The ward secretary came in later, and thought he was having DT's again.

having DT's again