[Ads-l] the platypus of languages

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

> On Jul 15, 2019, at 2:23 PM, Andy Bach <afbach at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
>> 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?,

the English plural is "platypuses"; the ridiculously pedantic Greek-derived plural is "platypodes"; the comic (or just deeply mistaken) mock-Latin plural, occasionally encountered, is "platypi". Cf. "octopus".

> 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,

yes, it's an appositive modifier rather than a restrictive one. there are various uses for appositive modifiers, and some appositive modifier + head combinations have become fixed as idioms.

... but about "the platypus of languages"...?

arnold

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