"there be dragons" ("jenny hanivers")

[Garson O'Toole]

Here are the specifics for the Time magazine article. The archive is
restricted to subscribers:

Title: Animals: Jenny Hanivers
Date: June 04, 1934
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,754234,00.html

On Tue, Jan 31, 2012 at 1:44 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      "there be dragons" ("jenny hanivers")
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>
> In a region of the seas not yet re-examined by the OED (the Js),
> there be jenny hanivers.  (Wikipedia: A Jenny Haniver is the carcass
> of a <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajiformes>ray or a
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajidae>skate which has been modified
> and subsequently dried, resulting in a grotesque preserved specimen.)
>
> Earliest I see in Google Books:
>
> The Australian Museum Magazine, vol. 3, allegedly 1927.  (Vol. 1 is
> Apr. 1921, according to the Harvard catalog.)  Snippet.
>
> p. 263:  "I have been unable to learn the source of the name Jenny
> Haniver. Perhaps it belonged to some second-sighted fishwife who long ago ..."
>
> p. 264:  "... a skate with malformed pectorals, but I am inclined to
> regard it as a Jenny Haniver, fantastically incised perhaps by some
> cunning alchemist and vigorously depicted by a skillful artist. The
> figure is copied here, as is also one of a more normal Jenny Hanivr
> which was associated with it on the same plate in Aldrovandus' ancient work."
>
> And 1934, from The Scientific Monthly, vol. 38, and Time, vol. 23,
> part 2.  Also allegedly and snippets.
>
> In use in the 2000s, including it seems in 5 different books by Philip Reeve.
>
> Joel
>
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