Now if vB code could only render sound files, we could suffer Colibri’s attempts at pronouncing his Gaelic.
Ray
Staff Reports? Staff Reports!? My dear JillGat, our
esteemed Colibri has transended “mere” Staff Report
writing and ascended to the unbelievably rarefied level
of practically writing Cecil’s column himself! Look at the
top of this page. See where we are? We’re here:
Straight Dope Message Board > Comments on Cecil’s Columns > Caterpillar Sex
It’s the middle bit that is notable. The very heart of
the column we are ostensibly discussing was penned
by Colibri/George with The Master basically playing
emcee and cheerleader.
Well, color me impressed.
That column set a new standard for me. I originally
joined this message board with a dream of merely being
“discovered” for the SDSAB. I dreamed that if I tried
really hard and was exceptionally lucky, I might get
noticed by “Little Ed” and he’d ask me to help with some
research. But now there is a new mark up on the wall!
Hey, a guy can dream can’t he?
- jam
[Edited by Jamoross on 01-05-2001 at 11:59 PM]
Notable indeed. I suspect that we’re in the middle of a Dr Who-like Cecilian regeneration. Your reference to “The Master” suggests you’re in on it. Colabri would be Cecil’s pupal.
This thread seems to be turning into a Colibri love-fest (knock it off!), but Colibri’s latest good action (the identification of the Lobster Moth) is quite praiseworthy. Colibri, if you’re ever down in my neck of the woods, I’’ll treat you to a drink (a single glass of non-imported beer - I’m on a budget.)
Aw, c’mon Arnold, they were just getting cranked up good! Since when is adulation against the forum rules? Party-pooper! 
Actually, Arnold, being partially of Helvetian extraction myself, I have always admired your altruistic deed at the Battle of Sempach (though I imagine it still must give you heartburn). Should I be in the vicinity of Luzern, I will be happy to hoist an Appenzeller Weizen with you. (You are offering a domestic Swiss brew, are you not?)
Any resemblance between myself and Cecil is purely coincidental. Great minds think alike and all that. And given the climate down here, I tend to favor a pith helmet rather than a mortarboard.
It ain’t all skittles and Appenzeller Weizen, jam. It’s true that the first time Cecil called on me I rather felt like the Pope was asking my opinion on what to do about the Middle East, or, more importantly, that Joe Torre wanted to know who should play second base for the Yankees in the Series. But ask yourself, do you really want Cecil calling you up in the middle of the night to ask you questions like, “Hey, George, do fish fart?” (Admittedly, I wasn’t much help to him on that one, but neither were most of the ichthyologists. However, I did locate what I thought was a nifty reference on exploding flounders that he unaccountably failed to use.)
Patience, Jill, patience, I am currently working on one on the gustatory preferences of vultures.
Actually, Jill deserves some of the credit on the caterpillar-sex column, as she is the one who rescued the topic from the “Questions-too-stupid-for-even-Cecil-to-answer” bin where it had been languishing.
And to clear up another loose end, since Jill here was proposing to have sex with a headless praying mantis, I’d like to inquire how it went.
Wide of the mark once more, NanoByte. Since, besides Swiss, I am also of Irish ancestry, I have put some effort into learning the mother tongue. Without getting into the intricacies of lenition, eclipsis, and broad and thin consonants in Gaelic pronunciation, I’ll offer you this:
Go n-ithe cúnna ifrinn do chuid calóga arbhair!
Phonetic: guh NYIH-huh KOO-nuh IHF-rin duh khwihj KAH-lo-guh AH-ruh-wir.
And NanoByte, I sincerely hope you plan on getting treatment for your paronomasia. If you continue to do that around the house too much, I’m sure it will eventually inspire your wife (if you have one) to give you a vigorous suggilation.
Quite a larva-fest going on in this thread, I see…
As is any resemblance of the Lobster moth caterpillar to the adult moth…
[[It ain’t all skittles and Appenzeller Weizen, jam. It’s true that the first time Cecil called on me…]]Colibri
Well, no, I called on Cecil first to call on you, but anyway, this whole thread is starting to make me want to barf.
It would seem that Colibri’s genes would be of utmost interest to science, containing elements of almost every strain of human variance on this planet, complete with their linguistic correlates. . .and something else stuck on there that attracts all those useless extra words in dictionaries that label the more extreme liberal-arts freaks. It would seem that there might even be some support therein for Lamarckian effects. Strictly in the interest of science, I suggest we sacrifice him. . .very humanely, of course, so as not to lose any of those lenitions, eclipses and what have you.
(Hold it in, JG, until after the great dissection.)
Ray
And speaking of loose ends, here’s jolly NanoByte back once more. 
NanoByte, if you think being Swiss-Irish constitutes “containing elements of almost every strain of human variance on this planet,” that suggests some rather serious inbreeding in your neck of the woods.
I do not, in fact, practice grandiloquence habitually. I have done it here primarily out of concern for NanoByte’s health. Since he revealed early on that he has to scurry across the street in order to consult a dictionary, I felt that peppering my parlance with sequipedalian words would help to promote his cardiovascular health. In the future, I wish only for his complete nullibiety.
The Gaelic phrase, by the way, means “May the Hounds of Hell eat your cornflakes!” (Traditionally, of course, this would have been “May the Hounds of Hell eat your potatoes!”) And before Arnold scolds me again, that was not directed at NanoByte, but provided only as an example. I wish NanoByte only joy in his cornflakes, even if he is proposing slaughter on me.
[[And before Arnold scolds me again, that was not directed at NanoByte, but provided only as an example.]] Colibri
…and to bring this asskiss thread back to the top of the board.
Jill
Which, dammit, I did too.
Cornflakes? Hey, I need something more substantial than that – read, ‘oatmeal’ – so I can put all those letters in that last word you butchered:
…sequipedalian?
…try sesquipedalian.
…^
Maybe you better stick to four-letter words. I only chose to cross the street for an unabridged dictionary once. I believe I could handle all your Gaelic from the Web, but it doesn’t turn me on. Hey, speak Swiss to us. You need a quadriphonic system to do that, don’t you?
Ray (Grew up for awhile in Oakland, CA, but they didn’t recognize Ebonics then. 
Thereafter ceased growing up.)
Of course, jam, even worse than having to deal with Cecil is having Jill pestering me for information all the time.
Regarding NanoByte, I would challenge him to a duel of wits, but I refuse to fight an unarmed man. I am retiring from this particular engagement, as I have much bigger mullets to fry. If the best zinger he can manage is to point out a typo or two - and if he actually does think that Swiss is a language - there is no point in continuing this game. The field is yours, NanoByte.
As I said before, if anyone actually has any additional comments on the column itself or related topics, I’ll be happy to try to respond to them. If not, hasta la vista.
Well, I think catching the typos of sesquipedalian grandiloquators is fair game.
As for “the” Swiss language, I thought they spoke four languages there (German, French, Italian and Romansch), so I suggested a quadriphonic approach. . .well, OK, a cacophanous quadriphonic one. (Coli probably has at least four mouths.) However, on this Web page, seven Swiss languages are listed:
http://www.sil.org/ethnologue/countries/Swit.html
(Hope Coli doesn’t try to convince us he knows them all.)
So now I’m checking out the border of Switzerland and Ireland to see whether there is an especially large population of insects there. . .which would explain how an English-speaking entomologist hung up on two unrelated foreign countries could’ve arisen there. (Hey, the world ain’t flat, y’know. All those places come together at the center of it. . .down there where the Linguistician from Hell likely arose.)
Ray (If your gonna use outlandish words, ya might as well make ‘em up – an’ use 'em fer w’at there good for.)
I Believe Colibri is really an ornithologist by profession
and only dabbles in entomology for the fun of it. Hey, we
all have our little hobbies. With me it’s vector transforms.
Grandiloquence is just a matter of style.
- jam
Yeah, I forgot. I guess he just checks up on what the birds have been eating. Sounds like a messy job. I guess grandiloquence is needed to dress it up a bit. I got over caterpillars at the age of 5 or so though. Stuck around only long enough for monarchs or tiger swallowtails to emerge. (That was very long before genetically engineered corn.)
So what else can be said about caterpillars here. I hope I never meet one named Imelda.
Ray (Corn engineered here is strictly ungenetic.)