Thag Simmons, R.I.P.

Despite its older-than-I-am pop culture references and obscure zoology jokes, The Far Side played a larger role in my young life than it should have. Hell, it ceased to be before I entered eighth grade, which alone should indicate that most of its strips would have been meaningless to me back when they were still appearing in newspapers. Still, as I’ve mentioned previously on this blog, I read it and bought the books and got something out of it all. And, via Dina, I just recently learned that The Far Side also gave a word to the world of paleontology.

thagomizer (THAG-ō-mīz-er) — noun: the arrangement of tail spikes found on certain dinosaurs, most famously the stegosaurus.

The minute Dina sent me the link to the Wikipedia page for the thagomizer, I instantly knew what it had to be, where it had gotten its name and why Dina had thought to push it my way. The term thagomizer comes from a 1982 Far Side strip featuring a caveman lecturing to a class about dinosaur anatomy, the joke being that the anatomical feature was named for a fellow caveman who presumably died as a result of contact with it. (Fun honor, becoming the namesake for the thing that killed you. Mark my words: One day we will refer to the act of giving a belly buzzer to a hibernating bear as doing a Drew Mackie.)

(image source)

And though I clearly remembered the strip, I didn’t know that a real-life paleontologist — Ken Carpenter of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science — is credited as having first used the term in real-life in 1993. Thagomizer then became an unofficial but nonetheless recognized term to describe dinosaur tail spikes that has been used in other museums, including the Smithsonian. The Wikipedia entry on the thagomizer concludes with this note: “The fate of Thag Simmons notwithstanding, dinosaurs and humans did not exist in the same era.” Part of me hates that this has to be pointed out, but another part of me understands the widely varying intelligence levels of the people who use Wikipedia and therefore accepts that this sentence is necessary.

Since we’re on the subject, thagomizer is not the only word to originate on the funny pages and pass into the realm of science. Wikipedia notes that some scientists find the term Big Bang just a little pedestrian and prefer instead Horrendous Space Kablooie, a term coined by a Calvin & Hobbes strip. Al Capp’s Shmoo has lent its name to the fields of socioeconomics, astronomy and beer- and bread-making. And, of course, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that the Far Side author himself, Gary Larson, had a species of chewing lice named after him: Strigiphilus garylarsoni. (Again, a weird honor, though it’s at least better than the cancer-causing protein known as Sonic hedgehog. “The bad news is that you’re dying, but the good news is that the thing killing you has a quirky name!” A potential inhibitor for this little menace? Robotnikinin, of course.)

And now, five lines of empty space in memory of the late Thag Simmons.





Previous strange and wonderful words:

• adulterine, ageusia, ambeer, anosmia
• barrack, bissextile, bloofer, breastsummer
• catholicon, cecaelia, couvade, cranberry morpheme, cummingtonite
• deasil, decussate, dingle
• eidolon, epeolatry, epopt, espalier, etui
• fabiform, fissilingual, Föhnkrankheit, froward
• gallinipper, grandgore, grue
• hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia, honorificabilitudinitatibus
• itaiitai, ignivomous
• jabroni, jamais vu, jehu, jumentous
• kaffir, kakopygian, knipperdollin
• leman, lemniscate, limnovore, linsey-woolsey, longicorn
• malacia, milt, mongo
• nef, nihilartikel, nobiliary particle, nosism
• ooglification, orchidectomy, ordured, orf
• pareidolia, pavonted, petrichor, pismire, pong, puggle, purse
• quacksalver, quagga, qualtagh, quidnunc
• ronion, roynish, rubirosa
• salmagundi, scrutator, seneschal, shebang, sinople, stevedore, suovetaurilia
• tergiversate, thon, tiffin, tittery-whoppet, tmesis, toby, tyro
• ucalegon, ultramontane
• veneficial, verdigris, vespertilionine, vinegeroon
• williwaw, witzelsucht, wooper looper
• xenodocheionology, xyster
• yazoo, ypsiliform, yoink
• zanjero, zenzizenzizenzic, zinnober, zugzwang

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Earl Sneed Sinclair

Until today, Sinclair Oil was a petroleum company of which I was wholly unaware. Its logo looks like this:


How much do we all want to bet that Sinclair Oil was the inspiration for the surname of the central family on the very self-aware sitcom Dinosaurs, whose patriarch is referenced in the title of this post. I'd like to think that this was the case, especially because all of the Dinosaurs characters died in the shows finale, thus making them all prime candidates to be petroleum products today.

Also, since the subject has already been brought up, did you all realize that Jessica Walter of Arrested Development fame and soon to be of neo-90210 ignominy was the voice of the matriarch on Dinosaurs? Just try to imagine what Lucille Bluth would sound like angrily saying "Earl Sneed Sinclair" and you'll get it.

Box Full of Puppies

You remember that bygone, misfit TGIF sitcom Dinosaurs, right? It should stand out because it was performed by people in dinosaur suits instead of people not in dinosaur suits. Hmm? What’s that? No, you’re thinking of Boy Meets World. This is Dinosaurs, a show that I can’t believe actually aired as long as it did, much less on the most mainstream night of TV that ABC ever slapped together. Weird though it was, the show offered some interesting cultural criticism. In one episode, family patriarch Earl became the head of a TV network, for some reason, and made shows so blandly appealing that they began to make viewers incredibly stupid — terrible things like The Happy Colors Show, which featured squares that would flash different shades, or Box Full of Puppies, which featured just that: squirming, yipping baby dogs. It’s hard to argue against the inherent entertainment value.

I experienced the Box Full of Puppies phenomenon this weekend. In a harmonic convergence the likes of which have previously inspired astrologers of yore and The 5th Dimension, I happened to be at my parents’ house while my cousins were watching over not one but nine Border Collie puppies. If you know me at all, you would understand that this amounts to heaven, or at least as close as I’ll ever get in this life. Of course, the puppies instantly reduced me to a googooing idiot who was entertained by their mere raising of single paw. And they raised their paws several times, at least. Total permagrin. I can’t tell if the experience made me stupider or not, but I suppose the new stupid me might not be able to appreciate the lowered intelligence. I guess for the moment we’ll have to assume the Dinosaur writers were not, in fact, prophets, though I think the Pet Channel actually now airs a show that’s not all that unlike Box Full of Puppies.

So I say we should do an experiment. I took some photos of all nine of the puppies — though I was rarely fortunate enough to get all of them in one frame — and I’d like you all to take a look and tell me if you feel stupider.

If you like, you can see the complete puppy collection here.

And if that weren’t enough, the cousins — whose house has always been a sort of dog playground — now own a four-month-old Irish Water Spaniel, who’s equally wonderful and kind of resembles the singing dog from those Nestle’s commercials. (I know, I know — this post is weirdly heavy on puppet references.)

Finally, here’s one of the dog I spent the most time with. He’s not a puppy, but that only means he’s able to fit more love inside him. Also, I have to give him credit: He has years of experience being a Border Collie that the puppies just can’t compete with.

So, stupider yet?