Re: dinosaur flatware

[Colin McHenry <s172579@student.uq.edu.au>]

At 06:01 PM 1/10/96 -0500, you wrote:
>Norm,
>
>Well, I'd be delighted to use a "better" term than dinosaurs, but I
>don't know of one.  "Prehistoric monsters" is too long and no one would
>know what I meant.  Pragmatically speaking, the only way I can think of
>to achieve accurate matching of term to usage would be to rename the
>category scientifically called dinosaur to something else and leave the
>word dinosaur with the meaning that it has in everyday English.  In the
>meantime, any suggestions for how to meaningfully (to the average
>listener) refer to prehistoric reptile-like creatures would be most
>welcome.  At this point, dinosaur works really well and anything else
>tends to confuse/mislead most folks.  
>
>I'm aware the word dinosaur is mis-used but ignorant of the correct
>usage.  So just for the record, what is the definition for "dinosaur"?
>
>Thanks,
>Karen
>
>

What about "saurian"?  Personally, I never thought that 'lizard' or
'reptile' were ever good translations of what the Greeks would have meant by
'sauros'.  The word always seemed to sum up a scaly big monster (e.g. nile
croc), as opposed to a furry big monster, which colloquial English would
call a 'beast' (e.g.wolf, lion).  Thus I have always felt that it would be
legitimate to use saurian as a generic, colloquial term for any large
reptile/sauropsidian/diapsid.  Lizard is taxonomic, not descriptive, and
reptile is either taxonomic in some uses or, colloquially, is descriptive of
'things that creep or crawl' - for many years the word immediately conjured
up images of a low set animal, either legless (snakes) or sprawling
(lizard), cold blooded, and invariably spiteful and deceitful (look at the
way reptile, lizard, or snake has been used as a metaphor for undesirable
characteristics in literature through the years).  None of these, to me, is
applicable to a larger animal (being impressed by size and presence as we
are).  "Saurian" is somehow bolder, nobler, more deserving of respect,
though different from "beast" (large mammal).

And if you don't like saurian, then what about dragon?  If I was ever to try
and explain plesiosaurs or ichthyosaurs then I would probably call them sea
dragons and fish dragons respectively (at least until Saurian comes into the
popular consciousness)

What do our Greek and Latin scholars think of this?

Colin