nomenclature

It seems like all I can do is rant nowadays. But ranting is easy. That's why I do it most.

Today's topic is: Baby Animals.

You would think that baby animals are perfect in every way. They are usually cute, granted. It's not the animals themselves that I would like to rant about, it is the stupid un-ending names that humans have decided to apply to each animal baby type. Why, oh why, do we even need to name them at all. Baby swans are called cygnets. CYGNETS!!! What???? Why??? What a stupid thing to call a baby anything!! Don't get me started on horses! Some baby horses are called foals, some are called colts, I think fillies are the girl ones but only a certain age range. I have no idea where the pony fits in. Is it a different type of horse? Holy cow!! Who cares?! My vote is to just call everything a baby ____. Wouldn't it be so much easier to say "Look, there is a baby horse."

"Well, Lance, when things are babies they need a special name because blah blah blah blah blah!" You know what, fake person responding to my rant? Shut up! You can't even come up with a proper response! Why don't you go back to come-back school, you come-back school drop-out!! All you can say is "blah blah.." Sure, I invented you and your response, but that doesn't change the fact that I'm right. Any other fake responders? I didn't think so..

While we are on the topic of the excessive nomenclature circus: Do we really have to call a group of crows a "murder." Murders, flocks, herds... What does it matter to say those things. Just call it a group of crows. Or maybe just "a bunch-o-crows." The term "bunch-o-*" is a term that can be used with any object to indicate that there are more than one of said objects being discussed. Just replace the asterisk (*) with the object you are talking about. Everybody will know that you are talking about a group of that object, I promise. Nobody wants to hear you say, "look yonder! I see a flugertyblurg of kurnkyknuckles." By the time they figure out that a kurnkyknuckle is the term used only during the months of June and October for a baby female squirrel between the ages of 2 months and 3 years, and that a flugertyblurg is a group of them, They will have missed the event anyway. I definitely speak for everyone when I say that I would rather someone say "Look, there are a bunch-o-baby squirrels." than hear them say "Hark! A flugertyblurg of kurnkyknuckles percheth upon yonder shmorntaven splorg." Ok, so those aren't really the terms applied to squirrels, but if you look up the actual terms at the link below, you will see that the real terms aren't any better.

It must be that at a certain point in history people just got really bored. They were all sitting around and one guy said: "Gosh I wish there was something to do!" and another guy said: "Well, we already named every object that we have ever come in contact with, and all our crops are planted. Games haven't been invented yet. Naming all those things was really fun, let's start naming everything's baby. And then let's come up with really stupid names for groups of everything!" And then everyone spent the next million years naming away.

You say you don't believe me that this animal naming thing is out of control? Check out this small list of animal baby and group names: http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/animals/Animalbabies.shtml. A sounder of farrows? I rest my case. For a moment..

The End.