• TheTechnician27@lemmy.world
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    13 days ago

    Petition to make the names less confusing by renaming the top one to “Bear” and the bottom one to “Twink”.

    • toynbee@lemmy.world
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      13 days ago

      Aww, I was annoyed but overall cheerful, then I read this and now I’m just sad.

      I guess you have at least simplified my emotional spectrum, so … Thanks?

    • Chloé 🥕
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      13 days ago

      kinda, not really

      arctic, from ancient greek ἀρκτικός did mean “of the bear” originally, probably as a reference to the constellation (cause i don’t think the ancient greeks ever went to the arctic to confirm if there were bears or not)

      antarctica doesn’t mean “no bears”, it means “the opposite of the arctic”

      the truth is less fun, but i guess you could still view arctic as “bear place” and antarctica as “not the bear place” and that’s still kinda funny i think

  • Admiral Patrick@dubvee.org
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    13 days ago

    It’s like when I see a place named “Westmoreland” I’m like "Ok, so someone thought, “there’s more land west of where I was, and I’m not very creative”.

    • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de
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      13 days ago

      if you dig deep enough that’s what almost all place names are, and as stupid as it feels it’s a great way to make fantasy place names feel not stupid.

      There are a series of cities on the northeastern coast of sweden that all lie near the mouth of a long river, and those cities are quite literally named [Name of the river valley]-stream, while the rivers themselves are named [Name of the river valley]-river. It’s so profoundly stupid and yet no one ever thinks about it at all.
      Luleå, on Lule älv. Piteå, on Pite älv. Umeå, on Ume älv. Etc etc…

  • Evil_Shrubbery@thelemmy.club
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    13 days ago

    Well, it* is about the only actual predator to the human species so we make a big deal out of it.

    *polar bear specifically I mean

      • Evil_Shrubbery@thelemmy.club
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        13 days ago

        Oh, that one is true, didn’t think of them old lizards, they even study the behavioural patterns of animals on land iirc.

      • trolololol@lemmy.world
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        12 days ago

        Ha, I think I have a name for the south area where the aquatic cousins of bears live.

        Austral Aqua Artic.

        It has a nice ring to it.

      • hector@lemmy.today
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        13 days ago

        Idk are there seals there? Because that’s the bear’s thing, ambushing seals coming up through their ice holes in the ince flows.

      • Nikelui@lemmy.world
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        13 days ago

        Because the last time someone introduced an invasive species to a completely different environment worked extremely well.

      • Evil_Shrubbery@thelemmy.club
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        13 days ago

        Not intentional prey, not eating the whole thing, not stalking.

        You might as well say cows then too, they kill more ppl.

        • foo@feddit.uk
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          13 days ago

          It was a joke. You see, I was suggesting that a place with lots of sharks might be called “Shark”, in keeping with the point of the original post.

          I am aware that most shark attacks are due to mistaken identity, but it wasn’t meant to be taken too seriously.

          Perhaps the reason sharks came to mind before any other animals is because I read this article a couple of days ago: https://www.standard.co.uk/hp/front/surfer-bitten-in-half-7232230.html

          It stands out because the way it was reported makes it sound like the sharks executed a coordinated attack on the surfer. But, again, I didn’t expect to get cross-examined on what I intended to be a humorous remark.

          • Evil_Shrubbery@thelemmy.club
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            13 days ago

            Oh, sorry! :)

            I got the joke, but seeing sharks as predators to humans always makes me think of the exaggerated story from the sinking of Indianapolis (wiki/USS_Indianapolis_(CA-35)) with all manner of bs added for fun, and a subsequent money grab books & movie (wiki/Jaws_(film)) that shaped entire generation’s minds bcs fear is so easily monetised.
            Imagine being a 400 million years old species & then getting anti-propaganda from a species that live in an environment you can’t even move in (and die quickly). And they dump toxic trash all over your environment. And have been killing you en masse since the day they could.

            Similar to how made-up stories & fairy tales helped kill off the wolves in Europe even before their unsustainable habitation shrinkage/separation of areas.

  • Aljernon@lemmy.today
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    12 days ago

    That the names translated accurately describes the presence or absence of bears is a coincidence.

  • MIDItheKID@lemmy.world
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    11 days ago

    Interesting. There’s also no penguins in the arctic. But there are penguins in Antarctica. I wonder if the was penguins in the north originally, but the bears ate them all. And the only reason the continue to exist in Antarctica is because there aren’t bears to eat them.