15 February 2009

 

Worldly stuffies

Here's a measure of our world. My daughters chose some new plush toys for themselves today, bought with their own money. Both animals the toys represent (a penguin and a koala) are from the southern hemisphere.

They girls dressed them in a cowboy hat and Irish green clothes in honour of St. Patrick's Day next month (for Sparky the penguin), and stereotypical Canadian getup of plaid winter hat with earflaps, fleece vest, and red "Canada" shorts (for Ringo the koala):

New bears

So we have an Antarctic aquatic bird in Irish and American clothes with a semi-American name, and an Australian marsupial in Canadian gear with an English name. Oh, and if you squeeze Ringo's hand, he roars like a Tyrannosaurus.

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# 11:54 PM

Comments:

Hey Derek. Interesting that the koala roars like a T-Rex. They do bellow, you know. I remember as a kid, at camp in the Grampians in Victoria, the sound of a koala crashing through the bush, bellowing as he went (very load). We didn't know what it was until he scampered up a gum tree close by. It was quite a scary noise.

Cheers

Steve Taylor (aka The_BigBlueCat)
Melbourne, Australia
# posted by Anonymous Steve Taylor (aka The_BigBlueCat) : 16 February, 2009 18:12
 
Is the word "stuffies" a new expression? I'd never heard it before about 2 days ago, when I heard a radio DJ talk about about a stuffed Quatchi as a stuffie and I'd never heard it before. But now here I see it again!
# posted by Anonymous Beth : 18 February, 2009 14:00
 
Our kids have been using it for years, and it's not uncommon. I think we called them "stuffed animals" when I was a kid, so the contracted version must have emerged in the past couple of decades. If you don't have children you might not run into the usage.
# posted by Blogger Derek : 18 February, 2009 16:30
 
My brother and I called them stuffies back in the 70's...maybe we invented it! ;)
# posted by Blogger Karen : 11 November, 2009 15:41