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#4935 08/03/00 05:14 PM
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william Offline OP
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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.


#4936 08/03/00 05:49 PM
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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


#4937 08/03/00 06:40 PM
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i'm really interested in animal adjectives in english.---

Avian't ewe herd of simian-larities, Deer?


#4938 08/03/00 08:33 PM
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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


#4939 08/04/00 03:38 PM
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william Offline OP
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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?


#4940 08/04/00 04:25 PM
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>is there one for giraffe?

sure... giraffine (or giraffish)


#4941 08/04/00 11:00 PM
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thanks tsuwm!

and i was hoping for something i couldn't pronounce, let alone remember!


#4942 08/06/00 08:16 AM
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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).

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#4943 08/06/00 06:01 PM
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>turdine (which seems most unfair, somehow).


yes, unfair to thrushes everywhere!


#4944 08/07/00 05:01 AM
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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


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