Re: News release on Kaiwhekea, new New Zealand plesiosaur (joke)

["David Marjanovic" <david.marjanovic@gmx.at>]

> << Oh, great! Now they're letting people use Maori names. I propose we ban
> people from naming things using Maori, Russian or Chinese words (or
> anything that results in a sprained tongue). >>

Problem is, of course... for a native speaker of Russian everything else
tends to result in a sprained tongue. :-) BTW, there's nothing Russian in
the examples you gave.
        Real question here: *Lancanjiangosaurus cachuensis* -- the specific
epithet is news to me. Where have you found it?

> The problem with Maori is there seems to
> be no correlation between spelling and sound. That I do not understand.

To my mind this only holds for wh being pronounced f (but fun is, that's how
Really Old Latin wrote f...). Everything else (except for the stress on
katiki) is exactly as I'd do it intuitively. :oP

> That makes Ben Creisler all the more valuable.
> He does us a terrific service. Thanks, Ben!

I repeat that.