723: dodo and dotterel Nov 30, 2016

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What is there to do when an animal is discovered on an island with no inhabitants, and therefore no names to adopt? There are at least 3 ways; first, use an imitative name based off of a sound the animal makes, such as with the name for 'cuckoo', second, make up a name out of thin air, and thirdly, use an already-existing word. For the bird, 'dodo', the third of these options was employed. The word for the bird discovered on Mauritius Island comes from the Portuguese 'doudo' meaning ‘simpleton’, denoting the ease with which the bird was killed due to its lack of innate fear of humans. 'Dotterel' was named from the related, 'dote', for a same purpose, except here there is an added diminutive suffix, '-rel', present in other words for the purpose of derogation, such as 'cockerel' or 'scoundrel'.

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