"Janus cat" = [self-evident], not in OED

Joel S. Berson Berson at ATT.NET
Sat Oct 1 22:27:44 UTC 2011


(A few other compounds are in the OED.)

Sets a Guiness World Record -- and is a local phenomenon.

Monday, September 26, 2011 [on-line; I do not know about any print appearance]
"Two-faced cat earns Guinness world record" [headline]
By Nancy Sheehan TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
"WORCESTER ­  Frank and Louie is a cat who was
born with two faces, so he has two names. Does that mean he has 18 lives?

It almost seems so now that he has earned a spot
as the longest lived Janus cat in the new edition
of the Guinness World Records ... .

The cat's owner, Marty Stevens of Worcester, has
owned Frank and Louie since a local breeder
brought him into Tufts Veterinary Clinic to be
euthanized when he was a day old.

Marty was a veterinary nurse at Tufts at the time
and offered to take him home.

The prognosis, however, was not good. Janus cats,
named after the Roman god with two faces, are
extremely rare and seldom live more than a few
days after being born. Often they die within
hours. But under Marty's dedicated care Frank and
Louie flourished. He turned 12 years old on Sept. 8.

Frank and Louie has two mouths, two noses and two
normal eyes with one larger non-functioning eye in the center."

[The second image shows the two faces, and has been reproduced widely.]

No GBooks results -- they are almost all "... Janus (Cat[alog] ...".

Wikipedia uses the phrase in its article "Diprosopus."

Joel

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



More information about the Ads-l mailing list