Sunday, November 18, 2018

P Is for Pterodactyl

Good clean fun for the nerdish young: P Is for Pterodactyl: The Worst Alphabet Book Ever, by Raj Haldar and Chris Carpenter, with illustrations by Maria Tina Beddia.

Thanks, Rachel.

[Pterodactyl: “genus of reptiles, from Greek pteron wing + daktylos finger.” And why is the dactyl a metrical foot? Because it resembles the structure of a finger, whose three bones suggest the three syllables: long, short, short. The Greek daktylos is itself a dactyl: — ᴗ ᴗ. In poetic meter in English, the dactyl is a matter of stress, not length. The word poetry is a dactyl. POetry: / x x.]

comments: 3

Daughter Number Three said...

I have to get that for one of my young relatives this Christmas.

zzi said...

That must be, at least, 78 points in Scrabble!

Michael Leddy said...

And do-able, as long as someone has already put down DACTYL. (Or maybe a more obscure Scrabble word. Is rodact a word?)