"Swan road horse."
In my History of the English Language course, we were discussing the etymology of the word "hippopotamus," which we found to mean, essentially, "horse of the water" or "horse of the river." A few classes earlier we'd discussed "river" as being a "swan road," so a guy in my class suggested that "hippoptamus" become "Swan Road Horse." I thought that was a sorta nifty way to describe such an ugly animal.
That is really interesting, Jenna. I think this quote would work quite well in a future draft. This post has given me the idea to challenge myself to rename ugly creatures, so that they seem more desirable. My neighbors have an English Bulldog named Ruka. In addition to the not so attractive name, Ruka has an extreme underbite (which of course is expected in that breed) the lower portion of her mouth protrudes so much it makes her look like she means to eat her own face. She’s cute and unique and deserves a better name. Have you ever seen a star nosed mole, an aye aye, or a matamata turtle? They’re also on my list to rename. Ha! Great post!
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