They followed their new bouncing friend

[austin_dern]

One more odd thing from company is how easy it becomes to spend hour after hour showing off pictures, mostly me showing off Singapore pictures. My father has a hard time not mentioning my alleged photographic skill (provoked in part by my setting my desktop background to one of the Singapore raccoons sleeping in a tree), and my aunt was glad to see it. I admit I have a lot of interesting pictures, but that's because I take lots and lots of pictures in general, and then I can show off the one that really turns out well. But if she's interested, all right, I'll go through pictures looking at four not-quite-right shots of a mongoose sleeping on a rock before finding the one that looks really good, and she'll sit there admiring how she didn't know mongooses had bands of color running down their fur and she also doesn't know how to say more than one of them.

She was a bit concerned about the walk-in enclosures in the Singapore Zoo, particularly those for the kangaroos and the lemurs. She agrees both classes of animal can be pretty relaxed about human contact, but if one of them does feel threatened by, say, a hyped-up and overenthusiastic human cub there can be very unpleasant side effects. I agree the potential for considerable trouble seems like it's there, but the Zoo's been running for years this way without noticeable problems, so it can't be all that probable. And then we got into a side discussion about whether ``lemur'' should be pronounced to rhyme with ``steamer'' or with ``demure''. I've gone for the first, but I can't swear that my pronunciation isn't biased by the fact I grew up when Annie: The Musical was adding decades to the life of Harold Gray's product by tossing its politics out the window. Although now that I look it up she said ``leaping lizards'', not ``leaping lemurs'', didn't she? This is mysterious.

My aunt reiterated her belief that I should be a science fiction writer, but she finally gave a reason she thinks I have some skill there: she's still got a healthy sample of my writing from the campus newspaper I was on in the early 90s, and thinks I have the needed skill in assembling words. Most of my writing back then was covering the student government, though, so the connection to science fiction is a bit elusive.

Trivia: The tenth month of the Babylonian calendar was Tebetu. Source: Mapping Time: The Calendar and its History, EG Richards.

Currently Reading: Dark Genius of Wall Street: The Misunderstood Life of Jay Gould, Edward J Renehan.

Comments

[xolo.livejournal.com]

And then we got into a side discussion about whether ``lemur'' should be pronounced to rhyme with ``steamer'' or with ``demure''.

I contend that the animal rhymes with 'steamer', the Roman spirit with 'demure'.

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

That's sort of how I've been doing it too.

What about Hyalopterous Lemures (http://ww2.wizards.com/gatherer/CardDetails.aspx?&id=2457), though, which are both?

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's a complicated thing too. Whether the Latin or the pronunciation picked up from treating things as an SRA kit would is a tough choice.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

One thing which it occurred to me might complicate things is that my aunt grew up on Long Island, where -- at least in days gone by -- they had odd ideas about how to say words like ``oyster''. ``Lemur'' could slip in with such regionalisms easily and almost never make it into a song.

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

See, and with Mongoose Lemurs you'll have double the problem.

(And it's mongooses, though I advance the incorrect 'mongi' now and then. One fungus, two fungi, etc.)

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

``The mongoose is a singular bird 'cause no-one can say two of 'em.''

Much as I like oddball plurals, I've been choosing where I can to pick more regular ones -- ``equilibriums'' rather than ``equilibria'' -- so I don't get letters from boring people upset about ``virii''.

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

Also no note re the other species in question: I thought persomally that 'lee-mur' was the American pronunciation, and 'leh-mur' was the British pronunciation. I'd have to watch 'Fierce Creatures' again to be sure.

--Chiaroscuro

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Were there lemurs in Fierce Creatures? I suppose they had to pad out things besides the coatis somehow. I'll have to check that too.

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

And Meerkats. 'The Pirhanas of the Desert'. The Lemurs were on promotional material, even.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Hm. They put in a good-size supporting cast for the coatis, then.

(If only the zoo had known that meerkats were going to become TV stars sometimes voiced by Nathan Lane soon enough.)