Re: original wording of Marsh's concept of Stegosaurus

["Richard W. Travsky" <rtravsky@uwyo.edu>]

On Fri, 4 Aug 2006, David Marjanovic wrote:
> > Does anyone have access to the original Marsh 1877 text where he names
> > Stegosaurus? Was musing on this while helping compose a wikipedia entry. 
> > In
> > Liddell & Scott, as well as 'stege' or 'stegos' meaning roof/cover (or
> > funeral urn), the verb 'stego' can also mean to ward off (as well as 
> > cover).
>
> I don't know Greek, nor do I have the Marsh paper, but I suspect that "stego" 
> means "_I_ ward off/cover". Why would Marsh have used the first person 
> present singular instead of the stem of the verb?

Well, stego/steg also appears in steganography

 http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=steganography

 steganography

 \Steg`a*nog"ra*phy\, n. [Gr. ? covered (fr. ? to cover closely) +
 -graphy.] The art of writing in cipher, or in characters which are not
 intelligible except to persons who have the key; cryptography.

so it would indeed seem to have something to do with covering.

The typcial depiction arrangement of the plates is up, and I'm not
sure I see the connection...