Good point

Comments

• janNatan@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  It’s short for spermaceti whale.

  Spermaceti is the name of the oil they produce for buoyancy/echolocation. Why is it called that? Because it was originally thought to be whale semen. Yes, really.

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  • SillyDude@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    I wonder if they were either disappointed or relieved when they found out it wasn’t cum.

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  • skeezix@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    spermaceti was named after the italian pasta shape; a folder durham wheat shell with a tail.

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    • PotatoesFall@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      Since it translates to “sperm head” I think it’s the other way around

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• FilthyShrooms@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  He went on to name a bunch of birds afterwards, like boobies and tits

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• FaceDeer@fedia.io ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  Unfortunately not before he did the bear and the peacock.

  Or rather before he named the bear and the peacock. Need to be careful with words when that guy's involved.

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  • hopesdead@startrek.website ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    I knew from the cropped thumbnail it was Ryan George.

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• Mediocre_Bard@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  Huh, TIL.

  The whale’s common name originated during the heyday of the commercial whaling industry, from the end of the 18th century through the 19th century. The head of the sperm whale contains an enormous fluid-filled organ (which whalers called the case). During whale harvests, this organ, now called the spermaceti organ, was discovered to contain a white liquid that whalers mistook for the sperm of the whale. The spermaceti organ is unique to sperm whales, although bottlenose whales possess a similar organ. It has a volume as large as 2,000 liters (530 gallons) and can extend through 40 percent of the whale’s length.

  britannica.com/…/how-did-the-sperm-whale-get-its-…

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• neuracnu@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  Just gonna leave this here…

  As I sat there at my ease, cross-legged on the deck; after the bitter exertion at the windlass; under a blue tranquil sky; the ship under indolent sail, and gliding so serenely along; as I bathed my hands among those soft, gentle globules of infiltrated tissues, wove almost within the hour; as they richly broke to my fingers, and discharged all their opulence, like fully ripe grapes their wine; as. I snuffed up that uncontaminated aroma,- literally and truly, like the smell of spring violets; I declare to you, that for the time I lived as in a musky meadow; I forgot all about our horrible oath; in that inexpressible sperm, I washed my hands and my heart of it; I almost began to credit the old Paracelsan superstition that sperm is of rare virtue in allaying the heat of anger; while bathing in that bath, I felt divinely free from all ill-will, or petulance, or malice, of any sort whatsoever.

  Squeeze! squeeze! squeeze! all the morning long; I squeezed that sperm till I myself almost melted into it; I squeezed that sperm till a strange sort of insanity came over me; and I found myself unwittingly squeezing my co-laborers’ hands in it, mistaking their hands for the gentle globules. Such an abounding, affectionate, friendly, loving feeling did this avocation beget; that at last I was continually squeezing their hands, and looking up into their eyes sentimentally; as much as to say,- Oh! my dear fellow beings, why should we longer cherish any social acerbities, or know the slightest ill-humor or envy! Come; let us squeeze hands all round; nay, let us all squeeze ourselves into each other; let us squeeze ourselves universally into the very milk and sperm of kindness.

  Would that I could keep squeezing that sperm for ever! For now, since by many prolonged, repeated experiences, I have perceived that in all cases man must eventually lower, or at least shift, his conceit of attainable felicity; not placing it anywhere in the intellect or the fancy; but in the wife, the heart, the bed, the table, the saddle, the fire-side; the country; now that I have perceived all this, I am ready to squeeze case eternally. In thoughts of the visions of the night, I saw long rows of angels in paradise, each with his hands in a jar of spermaceti.

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  • DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    What a magnificent example of the kind of straight male bonding you just don’t see anymore

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  • tetris11@feddit.uk ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    I’ve now understood why our english teacher skipped over this one at school

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• ReverendIrreverence@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  Cockroach has something to say here

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  • HowAbt2day@futurology.today ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    And the breastmouse bird has joined the chat.

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    • zer0squar3d@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      And pussywillow.

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  • kwomp2@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    cockpit enters the room

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    • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      Room enters room. The The Room room.

      (A room for watching The Room and occasionally saying hi to Mark)

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  • muhyb@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    We live in a simulation.

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• Nioxic@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  it’s called “kaskelothval” in danish

  kastelot supposedly means “oil-filled head”

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  • Lemminary@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    In Spanish it’s called “cacholote”. I wonder if it’s related because it’s such an odd word since other whales are called “ballenas”.

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    • wolframhydroxide@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      It comes from Portuguese, it seems, meaning “big head” en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cachalot

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• expatriado@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  before the whale, they named a bunch of birds for foreplay

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• Kolanaki@pawb.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  Why is it called that? Did the first one they ever see ejaculate at that moment or something?

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  • RattlerSix@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Wikipedia sez

    The name “sperm whale” is a clipping of “spermaceti whale”. Spermaceti, originally mistakenly identified as the whales’ semen, is the semi-liquid, waxy substance found within the whale’s head.

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    • SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      Spermaceti sounds like a pasta dish.

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• chirayu_alias@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  And I bet that guy regrets nothing

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• pancakes@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  You can’t just talk shit about Gerald Sperm like that, he gave his life for research 😭

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• Zerush@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  I’m interested of the reason to call an prehistoric elephant Tit tooth (Mastodon)

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• QuinnyCoded@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  the dongfish

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