Another list of some words snagged into English just from Virginia/Carolina Algonquian languages is at the bottom of the page here. (Ran across that looking for a reference link.)

I still find the usage difference a little jarring, with horns hooting instead of honking in British English.

Just realizing I have no idea what geese did before English speakers encountered cohonk elsewhere. (So yeah, geese are basically “honkers” in Powhatan that I know of.)

jumpingjacktrash:

coolmanfromthepast:

jumpingjacktrash:

blueelectricangels:

blueelectricangels:

if you read in a frog paper “specimen was released in the field immediately after capture” chances are very good that what it actually means is

“i dropped the damn frog and despite the fact that we fell all over each other no one could recapture it”

sometimes when i am sad i go read through the tags on this post, because they are 70% other biologists saying things like “AND ALSO FUCK FIELD MICE” and “THAT CRAB ALMOST BROKE MY FINGER” and I am reassured that I am not the only one who has bobbled a wood frog right into their cleavage.

plus six or seven people who just….can’t figure out what a frog paper could possibly be. (guys it’s…a scientific paper. about frogs.)

and this one

which made me laugh despairingly because i mean

bro you don’t even know.

what is the code entomologists use for “i stepped on it, i’m so sorry, it was dark out and the specimen was very small”

“Impromptu dissection was performed under less-than-optimal lighting conditions.”

‘impromptu dissection’ is an alarming phrase in any context and i thank you for it