New Dinosaur
 

A new dinosaur was found. Unfortunate name if you're a grade school teacher. Try introducing the "Nigersaurus Taqueti" to a 7th grade class.

no comment on something that had lips that sucked and describing the Nigersaurus

You have got to be kidding me. That sound like trouble waiting to happen. Did the naming committee even think this one through? I mean, I can see where the name comes from, and it makes sense. But all the same...

In theory, there should be no problem here. If it is supposed to be pronounced like the name of the country that I must assume it was found in, then the name is "neezhairosowrus." The article only says it was found in the Sahara Desert, but looking at a map of the Sahara Desert, I'm going to guess that they found it in the country of Niger.

In practice, every not-so-educated teacher in every not-so-geographically-literate part of America is going to pronounce it wrong...

The missing link between the dinosaur and the first Hoover/Spangler?

You're correct about the actual (i.e., indigenous, actually, French) pronunciation of the name of the country. The anglicized pronunciation of Niger is n(long i)-jer.

The problem is most evident if it is pronounced correctly in Latin.

I agree with your thinking, to some extent. However, it would probably bother me more if considerations of "political correctness" repercussions would trump the standard scientific naming conventions.

Political correctness can be carried to extremes. Have you heard about a city official in Washington, DC, I believe, who was fired recently (a year or two ago) for using the word "niggardly" in an official communication? I understand the reason given was "racial insensitivity".

>>>>My bad memory is getting worse, apparently.

I googled for this just to check things out and find that what I wrote is not correct.

The guy was having a conversation about funding issues with co-workers when he used that term. It created a major uproar and demands for his firing due to racial insensitivity. He resigned due to the uproar, but he was not officially fired.

Sorry about that.

Could I sue Al Sharpton if I hear him in a restaurant ask for the crackers?

I first heard the report on NPR, and of course they pronounced it correctly. It really is an interesting find.

Like it's been stated above...many, many people pronounce all words in an "american accent". By that I mean no respect for the native pronunciation.

This name was very poorly chosen. Maybe they hired the same branding consultant as penisland.com

They have a hypen in their now by the way ;).

As for the naming conventions...they could have named it for the exact region of Nigeria it was found in. I'm sure the locals would have liked that more anyway. I know the name is not intended to offend anyone, and I know that PC can be taken to unhealthy extremes. But let's face it, how many racist gay jokes are going to come out of this? To me it's a legitimate concern. It's the kind of joke a bunch of high schoolers would repeat to each other, and that's when people are the most impressionable. Maybe I'm going to far? I don't know, perhaps, but I still think it's a concern.

In the end, hopefully the only effect this will have is that people will learn how to pronounce Niger correctly.

I googled it -- ROTFLMAO

I can't agree with you here. The find was made in the Niger desert, apparently, and the archaelogist who made the initial discovery was named Taquet. The name, very loosely translated, is "Taquet's Niger Lizard".

This is a very standard naming convention in paleontology, very long precedent, etc,

I can hear Wayne Campbell saying, "It really does suck!"

The only problem with that name is that early computer pathnames were invented by geeks with limited character sets and RAM and who didn't realize that normal humans would use pathnames in the future, and so they discounted the value of the space character. So now we have to try and read words that were never meant to be run together, and a company name that looks fine in a street address looks embarrassing in a URL, and have to use clumsy hyphen or underscores workarounds.

I went to that website, and it's no website about pens... and I was looking forward to add more pens to my collection...

As for the name of the dinosaur, I do think people will take it as a joke on other people..
Just think about this, some african american students in my school aren't joining the basketball team because it's called "The River Bend Ravens" You make the connection..

This is the part I have a problem with. There are no new dinosaurs, only new discoveries of old ones.:)

wow, the last few posts help illustrate exactly how people interpret words in such different ways.

This New, er...old....ummmmm...refurbished (?) dinosaur sure has some hurdles ahead of it.

Now on an unrelated note...off for a pint of beer

How about the nursery rhyme being changed to "Baa baa rainbow sheep"? I thought it was a joke at first but sadly it wasn't.

In other dinosaur related news

Xenoposeidon proneneukus

Now that's a dinosaur name hard to pronounce... ;)

That's great!

But really, regarding the nigersaurus, mid school/junior high, and high school students will always find humor in anything which even remotely creates a titter. Some things will probably never change.

Eventually, they mostly grow up. (some of us resist greatly though) :D

This dino's a cool find. I haven't seen Paul Sereno's name much lately. A few years ago, he was frequently mentioned on the Discovery channel here in the US. I know I'm ready for another round of dinosaur related shows on Discovery or History. Hopefully a few years have gone by and more good science can be turned into informative entertainment.

Don't any of you remember learning the names of the planets...?

Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn....Uranus! Tee Hee!!

It's my understanding that the dinosaur name would really need two 'G's in it to really start looking like the same pronunciation. Sure people are going to play with the way you say it, but they probably fall into two camps: 15 year old boys, and those that might use those kinds of words anyway!

BTW, did you know that a popular cheese brand in Australia is called Coon Cheese? Don't worry, it was somebody's name...doesn't mean the same thing! Gives Americans a helluva fright when they see it though!

And interestingly, just like this dinosaur, the correct pronunciation of Uranus (YOOR-uh-nus) isn't dirty. That doesn't stop the giggling of middle schoolers.

Not a dinosaur, but damn this is a big bug

Monster Sea Scorpion

This'n'd take a bit more'n a pint'a melted buttah. :eek:

Yeah you'd need one hell of a cray pot.

Just the one though, eh...? I have been hearing some good things about this stuff called beer - might go and try some myself tonight.

Dee-no-saow. That's how they say it here in Thailand; somehow, I doubt the scientific name will get a look in...

In the papers here, we have big news about the 10 foot scorpion - is that making the news elsewhere in the world?

I believe the latest fossil evidence suggests that it was beer and cigarettes which caused the dinosaur extinction.

I agree... Who knows, maybe some 100 million years away in the future, some other 'living thing' will be saying the same about the human race..:D

Must be the same impulse that makes me chuckle when they claim to have 'cracked' the genetic code of clostridium difficile.

Clostridium Difficile

The scientific article mentioned in the news story link above has been published online at the following link if anyone is interested.

http://www.plosone.org/article/fetch...l.pone.0001230

I see nothing wrong about the dinosaurs name. It is in Latin not in English? Maybe ban Latin then?

When mispronounced in the U.S. it would sound like a racial epithet.

It’s bad enough that they couldn’t stick to naming hurricanes after women.

Do you know the politically correct term for mailman?

It’s personperson. :rolleyes:

Anothery

Fossil of 'ultimate predator' unearthed in Arctic

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fazstp, you beat me to it. I was looking at various articles on this beast the other day. Were it cruising the world’s oceans today, then I suspect there would be far fewer small boats out at sea. That’s one hefty dinosaur!

Is that how you pronounce it? Never heard that, I've always used the "dirty" pronunciation and damn the torpedoes. I would have said that the authentic Greek pronunciation was "OO-ran-os", there's no reason for the Y sound. OTOH we do say YOOR-anium, from the same root. Means "heaven", IIRC.

Regarding Niger the country, maybe both it and Nigeria should have gone the Ghana and Zimbabwe route of rebranding with a "native" name. Some European explorer must have decided to call that whacking big river the Niger, presumably after the skin colour of the inhabitants, unless it was the water; which name was then transferred to two colonial constructions. Perhaps we should rename a Northern country "Pastyfacia" to make up for it.....;) The big pre-colonial kingdoms in those parts were Benin and Mali, both the names of modern countries, and there's a Benin Province in Nigeria too. (I note that Civ 4, which I've just started playing, has a civ called Mali, under Mansa Musa, instead of the Zulus that earlier versions used. Cool. Mali has really great music, btw. -- Habib Koité and others.)

We have gators... over 28 ft (6.5 meters)

No - see the Wikipediia article on the etymology:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niger_River#Etymology

Well I never! That was interesting, thanks.

So, Preditor X, that's an interesting name. Did they give up on the Latin naming scheme? I guess Preditor X would make for a better movie title if you think about it...

Furthermore, how on earth do they figure out some of the things they do? They say that it would have only used the rear flipper when it needed extra speed, and that it would use it's front flippers when it's "cruising". How could you know something like that? Time machines?

That being said, I had a roomie who was a paleontologist, and he repeatedly amazed me with just how much you can deduce from information like this. So, I suppose my question "How do they know that" should have an emphasis on the How, rather than the that.

I think it's a mixture of finding modern biological equivalents to guess at their behaviours and scaling up mechanical properties of their skeletons to establish physical limitations.

Some of the things they come up with seem a bit of a stretch. Like "We found a new fossil. We only found part of the third vertebrae but we think it looked like this...".

I think the UN needs to sanction Niger until they change their name.
They're being insensitive to black people.

yes, yes, and I'm sure we can all recognize the scientific fact that there's never been a nigersaurus sucking on Uranus. :rolleyes:

I'd ask what the world is coming to, but I don't think that would make the discussion any better.

This dinosaur was discovered in Gadoufaoua, a region of the Ténéré desert, which is part of the Sahara. Yes, Gadoufaoua is in Niger.

Niger and Nigeria are two distinct countries. Niger was formerly a French territory, Nigeria was formerly a territory of Great Britain. Both are named after the Niger river.

Trevor

I believe the word you are looking for has two g's in it actually... Or, if my Rap albums are anything to go by, has two G's and ends with an a...

And I don't think it's black people either, I'm pretty sure it's African American...or is that too much now? Maybe alternatively colored?

(For the record, I hate stereotypes, and I tend to think political correctness can enhance stereotypes by defining an other, if taken too far...thus the sarcasm).

I'm pretty sure that people who live in Africa cannot be correctly called African American. They're African, with nothing to do with America.

Trevor

I dunno. If we call them African American in America, it only follows that in other countries they must do the same (African French, African British, African Mongolian, etc). And since we're all kept to the same standard, it's only fair that African's in Africa should be called African Africans. So, I'm only so wrong...

(Or we could just call people who live in America Americans, but why simplify things when we can be complex?)

you know, it's always bugged me that 'European' means French, German, Italian, Dutch, etc; 'Asian' mean Japanese, Chinese, Korean, etc.; 'African' is means Nigerian, Ethiopian, Kenyan, or what you will; but 'American' is always taken to be US people. Aren't Mexicans and Canadians (and Ecuadoreans and Brazilians, for that matter) Americans as well?

African Nigerian?
If it's still ok to call me white, then it's still ok to call Africans black. Even though neither of us are technically those colors.

I wish I could fill out the census with either "salmon" or "a lovely shade of light pink". It seems more descriptive, though, honestly, attacking the Census with Italian/English/Welsh/French/Cherokee/African/Spanish would probably be a lot more fun :). The Census really ought to try it's hand at being multiple answer...

I've always been a fan of norte americano. Which I suppose is everything north of Guatemala and Belize.

And we have some pretty cool dinosaurs in norte america. (need to stay on topic, don't we?)

This isn't a dinosaur nor a new discovery but I found it interesting and thought it was semi related. I knew of ammonites but had no idea how big they could get
until I saw a recent (at least to Australian TV) BBC documentary called Journey of Life. Looks at interesting evolutionary milestones.

Great links fazstp, thank you!

Can you imagine the barbecue we'd have to build for that Parapuzosia seppenradensis!!!

Certainly makes for some jumbo calamari rings.

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Yeah, but calling Limeys European would really be pushing it. ;)
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Just clicked on the signature link to your family jpeg! Lovely family!

I'm sure you didn't mean it that way, but it sure looks like you just called his family jumbo calamari rings. :confused::D:confused:

Have you clicked on his link yet? :D


(just kidding fazstp)

Thanks. I love 'em but I have to :D. Fathers' Day tomorrow. I've already got my popsicle stick pencil holder.