From Chris Ambidge yesterday, a set of images that he collected for me. Most of them I’ve posted on my X blog, because of their “adult” content (I’ll post a list of these soon), but here’s a whimsical one (from a Finnish site) that’s WordPressable:
Beware of automobile-devouring dinosaurs (species Autophagosaurus?)!
And then, on an entirely different project, having to do with uses of the word faggotry, I came across this jocular innovation, Fagasaurus, on a t-shirt:
(Lots of other references to Fagasaurus and Fagasaurus rex, which is presumably the species illustrated above, the totally gay Tyrannosaurus rex, the king of queers.)
The -saurus of names for species of dinosaurs has long been playfully extended to innovations like Munchalotosaurus, usually (but not always) suggesting T. rex. See my posting “Phallicity: the penisaurus” (here), for example. The element -saurus has then become a libfix, available for combining with any number of first elements.
Just in the homosexual domain, we have not only fagasaurus, but several other inventions.
Gayosaurus. In the homosexual sense, as in:
If you’re around my vintage (39ish) and still out there hitting the clubs like some big old prehistoric Gayosaurus you’ll know all the tunes, old and new, and with enough social lubrication you could have some fun with it. (link)
(playing on the extended sense of dinosaur as ‘old, ancient creature’) and in the ‘stupid’ sense, as in this exchange on a dinosaur forum (here):
[A] Are you insane?
Or maybe a gay dinosaur?
Are you Barney?[B] LOL. Barney’s species is probably called a “stupidosaurus” or “gayosaurus”. Funny.
Homosaurus. Lots of hits for the ‘homosexual’ reading, as in this Urban Dictionary entry:
homosaurus rex
1. Something totally fag.
2. Someone that is too gay for words.1. Woah, San Francisco is full of full grown homosaurus rexes.
2. What is that guy doing to your dads butt? That has homosaurus rex written all over it. (link)
And in the ‘Homo sapiens’ sense (a creature that is a cross between a human being and a dinosaus, or at least a lizard), as in this illustration (one among many):
Queerosaurus. Lots of hits. Here’s a cute story:
When I was a kid everyone always bought barbiedolls for me while all I cared about was dinosaurs. It all just ended up with me dressing up the t-rexes in pink skirts and ribbons and let them have the barbies for dinner. (link)
with an illustration:
Pansysaurus. Here’s a cite that takes us back to the character Barney, widely perceived (and ridiculed) as being gay:
I fell right in line with the sophisticated, urbane folks who felt the giggling, gay dinosaur was about the dumbest character ever created. The Jack came along and changed everything. Barney was an early favorite of his and suddenly the purple pansysaurus wasn’t simply a morning fixture on PBS – we actually owned Barney & Friends DVDs. (link)
Just a sampling of the sauruses to be found out there. Beware; some of them are reputed to recruit.
May 1, 2011 at 1:43 pm |
I was in a bar in Hayes Valley when the two lesbians sitting next to me started telling jokes. One that I recall that is relevant here has to do with the archaeologists who discovered a lesbian dinosaur. They called it the Lickalotopus. Is there a similar lore about -pus as there is for -saurus?
May 2, 2011 at 5:59 am |
Hmm. -pus is the ‘foot’ root from Greek, not particularly associated with dinosaurs, so far as I know. (In addition to the octopus, there is the genus Pteropus, taking in the bats commonly known as fruitbats or flying foxes.) But of course, here it stands in for pussy. Maybe there are some playful ‘cat’ formations out there.
May 2, 2011 at 5:42 am |
From Michael Palmer on Facebook:
May 2, 2011 at 9:43 am |
[…] Arnold Zwicky's Blog A blog mostly about language « -sauruses […]
October 7, 2012 at 4:24 pm |
[…] Earlier postings featured portmanteaus involving Tyrannosaurus: Trannysaurus here; fagosaurus, gayosaurus, homosaurus, and pansysaurus here. […]