Heya! Your recent dino etymology was super fun to read (≧▽≦)
I'll be really interested to read more of it :))
Also purely out of curiosity, but is there any story behind your knowledge of dino etymology?
I'm so glad you liked it! x) Here's another one:
So there is currently a dinosaur referred to as the Edmontosaurus, which means the not-so interesting "dinosaur from Edmonton," however, one of its earlier classifications was anatotitan, which much more interestingly means "giant duck." If I am being entirely honest, duck is not the first thing I would have likened to the pictures I've seen, but I guess with a layer of feathers it might make a little more sense.
The word is a compound in two parts, the first being the Latin anas which means "duck," and I've seen it be credited to a few different Indo-European roots, but the clearest connection looks like anat- for "duck" or "water bird." This particular root was what gave rise to the original Old English term for duck, ened, which was eventually replaced by a different Old English term duce, meaning "diver, dipper or ducker."
The second half is actually the same as one of the components of a previous dinosaur post, being titan which means "large, grand" coming from the Ancient Greek Τιτάν titan, which refers to the race of mythical, pre-Olympian giants.
To be honest, I'm not sure how I've learned so many of these. On more than one occasion I've fallen down an internet rabbit-hole finding increasingly bizarre names for sometimes otherwise innocuous or sometimes utterly entirely absurd creatures. Scientists are much more creative people than they get credit for.
