[Coco] furriners, more regional dialect

Fedor Steeman steeman at webspeed.dk
Tue Aug 31 04:23:44 EDT 2004


> > And then there is the Rhea, which I suspect is not only extinct, but
> > appears  much more rarely in the crosswords.

In fact, Rhea americana is the scientific name of the non-extinct South
American ostrich known as Nandu! The plot thickens... Careful now, as a
biologist, I could bore you all to death with a treaty on the great order of
flightless birds!

> > Speaking of crossword rarities, who has ever heard of an "ort", meaning
a
> > table scrap of food?  My unabridged dictionary says it's a
Danish-derived
> dialect
> > word, so I'd expect northern Midwesterners to know it.  But I never,
ever,
> > heard or saw it till the x-words.  --Mike K.

I wouldn't know what Danish word "ort" would derive from, but the "Oort" in
"Oort-cloud" is named after some Dutch astronomer (Jan Oort?)

Cheers,

Fedor







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