WOTY? beelzebufo

[Jonathan Lighter]

Thus "Beelzebufo" means "Lord of Toads/ Frogs" as well as "Devil Toad/ Frog," with overtones of "Lord of the Flies," which toads/ frogs eat.

  There are so many levels of meaning here I can't stand it!

  Joycean.

  JL

Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Wilson Gray
Subject: Re: WOTY? beelzebufo
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And, of course, there's the fact that _beelzebub_ is Hebrew for "lord
of flies" and not Greek, as the author of the article explicitly
claimed, and there is no word "beelzebufo" in either Hebrew or Greek
or Latin. That being the case, the word "beelzebufo" means whatever
its creator says that it means.

-Wilson

On 2/20/08, Joel S. Berson wrote:
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> Sender: American Dialect Society
>
> Poster: "Joel S. Berson"
> Subject: Re: WOTY? beelzebufo
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 2/20/2008 06:01 PM, Mark Mandel wrote:
> >Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>
> >
> >But "bufo" means 'toad', not 'frog', in both classical and Linnean Latin.
> >Rana atque Bufo amici sunt.
> >
> >m a m
>
>
> I won't argue about the Latin. But I quote Wikipedia on taxonomy:
>
> Toad refers to a number of species of amphibians. A distinction is
> often made between frogs and toads by their appearance, prompted by
> the convergent adaptation among so-called toads to dry environments,
> which often entails a brown skin for camouflage which is also dry and
> leathery for better water retention. Many so-called toads also
> burrow, which requires further adaptations. However, these
> adaptations merely reflect the environment a species has adapted to,
> and are not reliable indicators of its ancestry. Since taxonomy
> reflects only evolutionary relationships, any distinction between
> frogs and toads is irrelevant to their classification.
>
> For instance, many members of the families Bombinatoridae,
> Discoglossidae, Pelobatidae, Rhinophrynidae, Scaphiopodidae, and some
> species from the Microhylidae family are commonly called "toads".
> However, the only family exclusively given the common name "toad" is
> Bufonidae, the "true toads". Some "true frogs" of the genus Rana have
> also adapted to burrowing habits, while the species within the toad
> genus Atelopus are conversely known by the common name "harlequin frogs".
>
>
> I note that in the few hours since I nominated him Beelzebufo has
> increased his presence on Google by 70%. Is that momentum, or
> what? (Still no presence in Google Books, but I expect a campaign
> book shortly.)
>
>
> Joel
>
>
>
> >On Wed, Feb 20, 2008 at 4:34 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
> >
> > > Beelzebufo: the 10-pound, bowling-ball sized (and apparently shaped,
> > > although some say "squashed beach ball"), armor-plated, horned fossil
> > > frog from Madagascar.
> > >
> > > 28,000 Google hits (in less than 3 days from its public debut?), but
> > > none so far in Books or Scholar. (Are there WOTY subcategories?)
> > >
> > > Press release and "photo" at
> > > http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=111119&govDel=USNSF_51.
> > > (Download high-resolution JPG if you'd like him on your office wall.)
> > >
> > > Joel
> > >
> > > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> >--
> >Mark Mandel
> >
> >------------------------------------------------------------
> >The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


--
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
-Sam'l Clemens

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