Friday, 3 May 2024
Life, the universe, pies, hot-pink bunnies, world domination, and everything
This isn’t Muse-related, but it’s worth knowing:
Today, the journal Nature publishes the first map of the platypus genome. It turns out that this strange and wonderful animal is strange and wonderful on the inside, too. Google “platypus genome” to find out more (and notice how artfully news reporters avoid writing the plural of “platypus”).
Date: May 8, 2008
Categories: Non-Muse news, The Universe
and now comes the Question:
WHAT IS A PLATYPUS!
0
0
oh come on. everyone knows what a platypus is. don’t you:?:
0
0
It’s one of the two mammals that lay eggs, along with the echidna. (I probably spelled that wrong) Both are native to Australia.
It’s furry and has webbed feet.
0
0
God, Man for Aeiou, not knowing what a platypus is? I thought you were smarter.
The news article in Yahoo is really cool. I love platypuses. My friend Mae is obsessed, though.
0
0
Whoa, I seriously just read about this in the newspaper. Then I get on the computer and, well, it’s here too! Weird…
1- A platypus is an Austrailian mammal. It is basically a beaver with a beak, poisonous spines on its feet, and no nipples (Yet it somehow still feeds its young milk). It also lays eggs.
0
0
um, no I meant is it closer to a mamal or a bird dinosaur/reptile. or a fish. or what ever.
0
0
A platypus is a mammal.
0
0
6- It’s closer to a mammal. The only non-mammalian characteristic it has is egglaying. Some lizards give live birth. Why shouldn’t some mammals lay eggs?
0
0
A platypus is a monotreme.
0
0
It’s not “closer to” anything; biologists classify it as a mammal. It’s an oddball, because its ancestors split off from other mammals before placental mammals split off from marsupials, but it has hair, produces milk for its young, and generates its own body heat. Those characteristics make it a mammal in good standing. (Monotremes are egg-laying mammals.)
0
0
*reads article*
It shares 82 % of genes with human, mouse, dog, opposum, and chicken! My long lost cousin. *affectionately embraces platypus*
0
0
wow i never knew this stuff.:p
0
0
this thing takes a loooooooooooooooooooooong time to moderate
0
0
SPLAT!
0
0
13- ‘S because the GAPAs (that’s Great And Powerful Administrators: they’re the ones with the green names and the italics) have to moderate every single post personally in order to prevent spam slipping through. Obnoxious at times, true, but less obnoxious than having profanity and ads for Myspace cluttering up the blog.
Oh, and welcome!
0
0
Hi cukoo555! *pies*
I always wonder, why is it the Duck-Billed Platupus? What other types of [ plural of platupus ] are there?
0
0
thanks posoc&mim
0
0
oh, and there’s no other platypus type.
0
0
how many administrators are there?
0
0
I ♥ platypus.
0
0
slooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow
0
0
Slow compared to what?
0
0
19- Four. And they have day jobs. Which explains the slowness.
0
0
(16) Probably when Europeans first found out about the platypus, the duck bill made such an impression on them that they just had to mention it every chance they got.
Or maybe they couldn’t remember the official name and wound up saying “you know, that duck-billed whatever-it-is.”
0
0
24- is it the same with the duck-billed dinosaur?
0
0
And the plural of platypus is platypi, right?
OMG that is a funny word.
0
0
26- I always thought it was platypuses. But that sounds weird too.
I think that there should be a sports team of some kind called the platypi. That would be awesome. I’d buy all of their gear, since platypi are awesome. I wish I could see one live, but there’s no way my local zoo will get a platypus. *sighs* Oh well.
0
0
Last time the subject came up I found this one the plural of platypus:
from the Newsletter of the Australian Platypus Conservancy
What is the plural of “platypus�
This is perhaps the single most frequently asked question about the species. People feel that “platypi†doesn’t sound quite right, but what’s the alternative? According to our copy of the Australian Pocket Oxford Dictionary (Fourth Edition, reprinted in 1999), the word “platypus†is derived from two Greek words meaning “flat footâ€. Given that the plural of the Greek “pous†is “podesâ€, we presume that—strictly speaking— platypodes should be living in the Antipodes. However, given that “platypodes†has for some unfathomable reason never really become popular, the dictionary goes on to inform us that the accepted plural is “platypuses†or (particularly in scientific and conservation contexts) “platypusâ€. With hindsight, it might have been best if the English word used to describe the animal now known as the platypus had been “watermole†(as suggested by the first English colonists) or one of the many aboriginal terms for the species. On the other hand, we are deeply and eternally grateful that the platypus’s official scientific name, “Ornithorhynchusâ€, has never been adopted for popular purposes!
Robert put it more succinctly: “I say ‘platypuses’ instead of ‘platypus’ because it sounds funnier. That seems to me a perfectly valid reason. If you find a word funnier than ‘platypus,’ I think you have a positive duty to say it.”
For some reason I keep hearing it in my mind as pronounced by Daffy Duck.
0
0
28- I will use “platypodes” in conversation at the earliest opportunity. How is it pronounced?
0
0
Platypuses (platypi?) are adorable!
Here is a pic for ppl who have no idea what they look like…or was that zapped?
Can you believe that people used to think that the ppl who had discovered them had stitched together two animals to trick them?
0
0
I like Platipi. manly for the reason it rhymes with octopi.
0
0
Cheesy Platypus Joke: What would you call if you added cat characteristics to the platypus? A Platypuss.
Cheesy Platypus Song: Oooooh, Jennifer B., 2% beautiful, 98% platypus!
0
0
I just found some awesome pictures/ comics about platypuses! I’ll send them to the GAPAs.
My friend actually thought platypuses were fictional until she saw one at a zoo. God love her.
0
0
It would be platypi, wouldn’t it? I mean, if animal names come from Latin, the correct nominative plural of a noun ending in “-us” is “-i”.
0
0
Octopi! Platypi! What funny words!
0
0
It’s from Greek roots, actually: platys (broad or flat) plus pous (foot). That’s the justification for someone’s semi-serious suggestion that the plural should be “platypodes” — which I think would be pronounced “pla-TIP-o-deez.” Somehow I don’t think that’s going to catch on.
Needless to say, neither the Greeks nor the Romans ever saw a platypus. The word was coined much later, by 18th-century European scientists who had studied Greek and Latin in school.
0
0
Hehe pla-TIP-o-deez , funny 
0
0
Platypi is such an awesome word. So is cacti. And buffali.
0
0
36- Platypodes is my new favorite word. That’s the one I’m using.
0
0
38-I don’t think buffali is a word, the plural of buffalo is buffalo or buffaloes. I prefer using buffalo for the singular and the plural, because of “Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.” (A grammatically correct sentence, look it up on wikipedia.)
As for the plural of platypus, M-W says platypuses or platypi. It also says that platypi can be pronounced with either a long i sound (which would be the more anglicized way) or with a long e sound (which would be the more accurate Latin pronunciation, if the word were Latin, which in fact it is not).
0
0
Somehow I don’t think “platypee” is going to catch on, either.
0
0
41- You make me laugh, Robert. You make me laugh.
I adore platypodes. I wanted one for my sixth birthday. and you know what? I still do. So, if anyone can hook me up with a platypus… gimme a call.
0
0
In Australia, if you ever smell a sort of mousy, ratty pee,
Be careful, or you might disturb a nest of duck-billed platypi.
And if an Aborigine should serve a meaty, fatty pie,
Prepare yourself to taste a quiche Lorraine made out of platypi.
World travelers, be warned before you visit the Antipodes:
Down Under and vicinity are swarming with platypodes.
0
0
43- The platypodes
Appreciate your ode(s)!
0
0
Hypatia — Thanks loads!
However, “platypodes”
Sounds less like “odes”
Than like “Euripides.”
(Pla-TIP-o-deez — got it?)
0
0
This is brilliant!
0
0
I just made a slight change to the platypus poem. Quiche Lorraine is made with eggs and bacon, and I wanted to underscore the point that a platypus can supply both. Here’s the revised version:
In Australia, if you ever smell a sort of mousy, ratty pee,
Be careful, or you might disturb a nest of duck-billed platypi.
And if an Aborigine should serve an eggy, fatty pie,
Prepare yourself to taste a quiche Lorraine made out of platypi.
World travelers, be warned before you visit the Antipodes:
Down Under and vicinity are swarming with platypodes.
0
0
Hooray for platypi/podes/puses!
0
0
I love this thread!
When I was little, I was always reading science books. My mom was telling someone about a platypus and she was like, “(name omitted), what’s a platypus classified as?”
I responded, exasperatedly, “Mommy, it’s a monotreme.”
It was hilariously funny at the time. I guess you had to be there.
0
0
47 makes me laugh
0
0
33-My friend used to think either zebras or giraffes (I don’t remember which) were fictional…and even weirder, she also thought palm trees were until she was 8. She lives in Colorado, but to me that seems very strange….
47-Lol. But [insert preferred plural of “platypus here] can’t actually supply bacon, because bacon is made out of pig by definition (according to m-w at least).
49-If it were me, I would have reworded the question so it didn’t end with a preposition before answering it. (Well, not when I was little, I only started doing that in the last few months.)
0
0
If I’d ever put any thought into it, I would’ve thought it was ‘platypi’, but I rather like ‘platypodes.’
47: Hilarious!
0
0
GAPAs, I sent you some platy-pics that I found online.
0
0
Platypus also sounds like a word where the plural is the same as the singular, almost. I called them Platypuses.
0
0
*snigger* platy-pics… *sniggers at self*
0
0
*sniggersniggersnigger* Platypi. Platypodes. *sniggersniggersnigger*
0
0
Dislike irregularity? Then you may join the wusses
Who pluralize by adding E, S — i.e., platypuses.
0
0
57- ??? that was a bit desperate, Robert. But it was funny!
*tries to think of witty ode to platypus*
*ultimate failure*
0
0
We here on MuseBlog, we like to discuss
The genes and the plurals
Of our friend, platypus.
*blinks*
*runs and lurks*
0
0
*gasp* I am going to write a sonnet about platypodes!
0
0
octopus=octopi
platypus=platypi
hippopotamus=hippopotami
Or so says the lingual proffessor at University of Louisianna, whom I phoned concerning this issue of plurals. He says that ‘platypodes’ is considered by some to be acceptable, but is mostly considered archaic.
0
0
61- You phoned someone from the University of Louisiana just to ask about plurals? That rocks.
0
0
I wrote Ode to Platypus:
Wait. Dang. I can’t remember it right now. I turned it in.
0
0
Ode to Platypus:
Yes, please tell me, my all-powerful brain,
What is the greatest animal of all?
Gould it possible, ever ride a train?
Wait — PLATYPUS — they don’t grow very tall.
Males have poisonous spurs on their back legs
They are my most favorite monotreme*
The females are odd – they lay only eggs
They are peculiar creatures, I deem*
And what about the plural form of it?
Platypodes, platypi – I’m confused!
How can platypuses possible sit?
Just thinking about it makes me amused.
Ah well, whatever a group of them are
They are still the best animal by far.
* Not that I prefer males over females. Those lines are just about general platypuses… platypodes… platypi?
0
0
Platypodes like
To swim in the water like
Beautiful fishes.
OH, pwnage. That took me 5 minutes. Another haiku;
Haikus are easy,
But they don’t always make sense;
Refrigerator.
0
0
platypuses are awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
0
0
*strange thought of relative helpfulness*
Someone should look in the OED apparently, it includes the plural of the words in the definitions.
Finally… a way to know!
65: haiku #2 is really funny!
0
0
somone probably said this already but:
when the platypuses were discovered, people thought that the dicoverer had just sewn pieces of other animals together kinda like frankenstein. creepy.
0
0