No, “helping” land tortoises to the ocean is not a good idea:
I have no idea; but since this is in MPSIMS my guess is a turtle is to a tortoise what a frog is to a toad.
Now here come the smart people:D
-Lewis Carroll
Tortoises are reptiles. Turtles are birds. (Etymologically).
I didn’t know that. What a wonderful world!
My niece has a tortoise and he’s pretty neat. He likes to sit in her lap, presumably because she’s warm. He’s a more satisfying pet than I expected him to be.
Um, no. Turtles are still reptiles.
He said “etymologically,” but that’s debatable. “Turtle” originally appears in English in c1300 to mean “turtledove.” The reptile name comes from a different source, the French tortue, and appears in c1600, but may have been influenced by the original “turtle.”
I tortoise will normally have a higher domed shell and feet that are not webbed for swimming. Water turtles will often have legs more like flippers.
Now that the actual joke has been addressed…
Birds are actually reptiles, too. (Archosaurs* - their closest living relatives are crocodilians. It’s not 100% where turtles and tortoises fit, but they’re probably more closely related to archosaurs than to other reptiles, but also probably not actual archosaurs.)
- Dinosaurs (including birds), crocodilians, and pterosaurs.
Then we start adding terrapins to the confusion. And why not.
Surely such tortuous torturing of a tortoise is tortious.
Dang spell-check failed again!
The ultimate authority:
[QUOTE=Ogden Nash]
Come crown my brow with leaves of myrtle
I know the tortoise is a turtle.
Come carve my name in stone immortal,
I know the turtoise is a tortle.
I know to my profound despair
I bet on one to beat a hare.
I also know I’m now a pauper
Because of its tortley turtley torpor.
[/QUOTE]
The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over, but it can’t. Not without your help. But you’re not helping. Why is that?
Box turtles throw a monkey wrench into the works, however. They live on dry land and have high-domed shells and stumpy feet like tortoises, but they are turtles both by their common name and by scientific classification, being more closely related to pond turtles than to tortoises.
I was kayaking on the Saint Francis river in Missouri and happened upon a box turtle swimming across the river. He wasn’t moving very fast and didn’t seem to be able to submerge. We were the only ones out there that day so it’s unlikely that someone tossed him out there.
If you go far enough back in the evolutionary tree, you’ll find that I’m related to bacteria. That doesn’t mean I am one.
No comment about how gawd-awful stupid the people “helping” the tortoises are?
Reality may have confused The Byrds with The Turtles. The former sang “Turn, Turn, Turn.” The latter, “So Happy Together.”
A man was walking the beach, which was covered in stranded starfish. Another man was picking the starfish up, and tossing them back into the ocean. The first man tells the second man he is a fool, that it won’t make a difference. The second man tosses another starfish back into the ocean, and says “Made a difference for that one”.
This story is pretty much the exact opposite.