Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Word Origins 11. The word origin today is dinosaur.
Okay. Let's take a look at the note here. The word dinosaur is a relatively
recent word considering the fact that dinosaurs are supposed to be millions of
years old. The word dinosaur came into existence after a famous biologist and
paleontologist Sir Richard Owen coined the term Dinosauria in 1841.
So before 1841 there was no such word as dinosaur. It never existed. Even though
they did find some specimens of dinosaur bones before that. But they were never
called dinosaurs. Before 1841. Okay. Let's continue. The term dinosaur actually
comes from two Greek words deinos which meant either terrible, powerful, or
great combined with sauros. Remember sauros, that's why a lot of dinosaurs often have
like they end the word ending, almost like a suffix is sauros of many different
types of species of dinosaurs. Sauros is the Greek word for lizard. So, so even, even
Sir Richard Owen that's how he probably got the idea.
He took the Greek words deinos and sauros and kind of put them together to
create the word Dinosauria. And of course Dinosauria eventually turned into just
dinosaur today. Well let's continue with the note here. Believe it or not, the
original word for dinosaur used by most cultures was dragon. Even though, today we
think of dragons as a mythical fantasy animal. You know, that never existed. It
was very common to call the old specimens that they found of what today
we call dinosaurs used to be called dragons. All right. Let's continue. We have,
we have often been taught that dinosaurs died off millions of years ago. But they
say there is quite a bit of evidence that some dinosaurs still existed with
man. Yeah. We are not saying they are still alive today, but they might have existed when
man was around. ( mm-hmm) This can be found in writings of some explorers and
historians. I remember I had seen a documentary once where
I think one of the guys in the documentary, I think he was mentioning
Marco Polo that maybe in some of Marco Polo's writings he described an animal
that was like a dinosaur. So I think I think that might be one with explorers. I
think there was also what some historians talked about some of the
writings of Alexander the Great described encountering some animals that
were like dinosaurs as well. And there is other evidence too. I've heard of a quite a
bit of other evidence like drawn on different types of shells like that man
drew pictures of dinosaurs and stuff. So perhaps there really was some. Anyway,
let's continue. The term dinosaur has taken on a second meaning today as well.
We can refer to anyone or anything that is very old fashioned or no longer useful
or effective as a dinosaur. Well one sort of example is this. A
nickname for the mainstream media is often referred to as the dinosaur media.
Yeah when some people think that the old regular media we used to watch on
regular TV and a lot of the famous news networks, you know many people aren't
really paying as much attention to them anymore. And they're finding more
alternative Internet sites that they sometimes believe are more trustworthy.
So sometimes, they'll refer to the old mainstream media as dinosaur media.
Okay. Anyway, I hope you got it. It was informative. Thank you for your time. Bye-
bye.