On 06/17/2014 12:14 PM, Robert J. Hansen wrote:
I was going to suggest a hedgehog (it's likeable, generally favours security
over speed, and knows to protect itself), but a terrapin sounds great. Now I
just have to find out the difference between a terrapin and a turtle…
The Algonquin tribe of Native Americans, originally living in Virginia,
had a word for turtle: "torope". American settlers adopted this word
and over the last 400 years it's been corrupted into "terrapin." As a
result, "terrapin" has become a common American synonym for "turtle,"
but the word's rarely used in the rest of the world.
Your etymology may be correct, as well as the common usage; but in
zoology a turtle is an animal that lives only in the water, a tortoise
is an animal that lives only on the land, and a terrapin moves between
the two.
Doug
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