Apological

An observant comment on yesterday’s post pointed out the link from the Kwalado to Myron Krueger’s creature. In fact the Kwalado has a long and proud lineage, dating very far back. Some of her recent ancestors include Peter Lord’s character Morph (1977), the Id Monster from Forbidden Planet (1956), the intrepid hero of Chuck Jones’ Duck Amuck (1953), and all the little playthings that provided such innocent amusement for Chernabog in Fantasia (1940). Not to mention just about everything from the early career of Art Clokey.

Scientists have recently discovered that in addition to the well known geological eras of the Pliocene, the Pleistocene and the Holocene, there was another, lesser known era, when primordial creatures of indeterminate morphology roamed the Earth.

I speak, of course, of the Plasticene.

It wasn’t always thus. There was a time when all creatures were determinate in form. Then came the cataclysmic occurrence that geologists refer to as the “Plasticene explosion”. Nobody is quite sure why the Plasticene era occurred when it did, yet arguably it brought about the most significant apological transformation in geological history.

The Kwalado knows nothing of this. She is all too easily upset, and usually prefers not to dwell on the past. If I were you, I wouldn’t say anything to her about it.

8 thoughts on “Apological”

  1. “Apological”, huh? I’m assuming that if this were a real word, Google would know about it, and since it doesn’t, that you have invented it. Okay, I’ll bite (figuratively – I don’t really bite :).

    I am trying to figure out what it might mean from the roots, but it isn’t clear what the roots are. I’m guessing the noun would be apology (but not the usual English meaning of that word), similar to biology (-> biological) and analogy (-> analogical). However, “-logy” in biology mean “the study of”, whereas “-logy” in analogy means “ratio” or “word, speech, reckoning”. “apo” as a prefix comes from the Greek meaning “away, off” and “In modern scientific coinages in English and other languages, apo- marks things that are detached, separate, or derivative” .

    Where does this leave us? I suppose “apological” could mean the science of creatures of indeterminite form (detached, apart, as opposed to biological). Am I close?

    (All definitions from dictionary.com).

  2. The word is obscure (perhaps too obscure to be easily found via Google search), but real. It refers to the quality of being an apologue, a brief fable or allegorical story designed as a pleasant vehicle for rhetorical argument.

    Because my tale is apological, I offer it without apology. 🙂

  3. English is so unpredictable! Why is it that an “analogue” is something having an analogy to something else, but an “apologue” is not something having an “apology” to something else? At times like these I just want to go compile a Java program 🙂

  4. Thanks for the compliment!

    The advantage of English over Java is that the target hardware is much more powerful. 😉

  5. Are you sure you didn’t invent a word? My dictionary gives the adjective form of apologue as “apologal”.

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