IT'S GNUS TO ME

Blog number 410 **** 20 August, 2010

I was watching the National Geographic channel yesterday, a documentary about the Serengeti Plain in Africa where all the biggies hang out. The Giraffes, the wart hogs, the cheetahs, the leopards, the lions and tigers and bears, oh my. Well, not tigers and bears. Honey bears yes, but other bears, no. I think I got that from an old Judy Garland movie.

The voiceover was describing the activities of wildebeest. A wildebeest is a rather large horse faced antelope with hooked horns like a cow. Kinda stupid. Anyhow, these animals used to be called "gnus" and were prominently featured as such in crossword puzzles. Not so much anymore. "Gnu" is pronounced, "new." The "G" is silent.

The wildebeests were trying to cross a rather large river and a lot of the calves got separated from their mothers and as the voiceover described it, "They run up and down the bank of the river gnuing." Gnuing was pronounced "guh newing."

I thought that rather interesting. Gnuing sounded a lot like mooing. The sound, I mean, not the description.

Which reminds me. I once saw (on the telly) a wildebeest accidentally step on a huge crocodile in a river and the croc came up and grabbed the wildebeest's whole hindquarters in its mouth and dragged it underwater. A few seconds later the croc let go and the wildebeest climbed out onto the bank, not a scratch on him. I thought that mighty interesting too.

That's all I got for now.