[Ads-l] the platypus of languages

[Andy Bach]

> Germanic is, in stemmatic terms, unmappable with any consistency,
> since different features would place it in different positions: it is
> the duck-billed platypus of languages.

Are there different sorts of platypus ... platypuses ... platypi?,
that is, are there non-duck-billed ones? Wait:
The real common name of the animal is actually just "platypus", and
its species (Ornithorhynchus anatinus) is the only living member of
its family (Ornithornhynchidae).

"Duck-billed" is just a descriptor that gets added on to it in folk
parlance, sort of like you might call an American Robin a "Robin
Red-breast." Early British settlers called it by many names, such as
watermole, duckbill, and duckmole. So perhaps the the common use of
"duck-billed platypus" is a combination of two names.
Elizabeth Goldberg (Quora)

On Mon, Jul 15, 2019 at 4:13 PM Arnold M. Zwicky <zwicky at stanford.edu> wrote:
>
>  i know that it's annoying to repeat a requestion for information, but my experience is now that (for one reason or another) many people don't notice the first postings, so that it's only when i say i'm giving up my search that material starts pouring in. (it's also true that i've been advised not to post requests on weekends -- and *never* on US holiday weekends -- because they'll go unnoticed.)
>
> on this topic, there seem to be two largely separate platypodal matters: one lexical, one morphosyntactic.  i *think* the original query concerned English as a language with two strata of vocabulary (the writers seem to think this makes English extraordinary, but in fact such languages are as common as sand). on the second, i *think* the reference is to wave rather than tree models of language relationships. but these are guesses; i haven't been able to consult any of the sources.
>
> i'm forwarding these exchanges to the language typology mailing list.
>
> > On Jul 15, 2019, at 5:32 AM, ADSGarson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> >
> > Arnold M. Zwicky wrote:
> >> a friend quotes this to me on Facebook:
> >>  French was the swan, German the beaver, and thus English is the platypus of languages.
> >> new to me.  i did find
> >>  https://www.nerdonomy.com/the-platypus-of-languages/
> >>  the Nerdonomy site, with a podcast "The Platypus of Languages" (not dated)
> >> this has probably been investigated here, but in case not...
> >
> > Here is a different match for the same figure of speech.
> >
> > Year: 2010
> > Book: The Pleasures of Contamination: Evidence, Text, and Voice in
> > Textual Studies
> > Author: David C. Greetham
> > Quote Page 159
> > Publisher: Indiana University Press, Bloomington, Indiana
> >
> > [Begin excerpt]
> > Germanic is, in stemmatic terms, unmappable with any consistency,
> > since different features would place it in different positions: it is
> > the duck-billed platypus of languages.
> > [End excerpt]
> >
> > Garson
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



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a

Andy Bach,
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