Science Memes

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Radio transmissions (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 3 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 115 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (10 children)

I think the meme is funny too, but it seems like it's becoming so divorced from its original context that some people actually believe that carcinisation is some kind of ideal endpoint of evolution. Just to clarify: this isn't true given how few, localized actual examples there are and the tradeoffs involved.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I unironically love Latinisation (and Greekification).

“Crabification” would have worked just fine to express this idea, but “carcinisation” sounds so scientific and erudite.

People dog on English, but I think it’s really cool how we have other ancient source languages to pull from to coin “smart” words when needed. And when you dig into the etymology of the “fancy” word, it adds texture, layers, history, and extra context to the whole thing.

Ok, that was a tangent. Carry on.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 days ago

A few additional fun points about this:

"Crab" is Germanic.
"-ification" itself has its roots in Latin, so even your proposal would be "Latinised".
"carcino- comes from Ancient Greek.
True crabs' scientific name, "Brachyura", is Neo-Latin derived from Ancient Greek.

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