Thagomizer

My old friend Charles Parsons, a logophile (a lover of words, as defined in this collection of nynonyms) of the first water, so to speak, sent me an article from the July 8th issue of NewScientist in which the new paleontological word Thagomizer was defined. Wondering if it had yet made it into the Wikipedia, I searched, and almost immediately found Thagomizer, itself. I quote in an extracting manner:

"The thagomizer is the arrangement of four to ten spikes on the tail of particular dinosaurs, like the famous Stegosaurus, in the clade Stegosauria. The tail is believed to be a defensive weapon against predators.

"The term 'thagomizer' originated as a joke from a Far Side comic strip by Gary Larson, in which a group of cavemen in a lecture hall are taught by their caveman professor that the spikes were named in honor of the late Thag Simmons (the implication being that the Thagomizer was responsible for Thag's death, along with the typical Larson out-of-context joke that suggested cavemen might have modern surnames).

"Whatever was the original word for the stegosaurus' spiked tail, if it indeed ever had one, 'thagomizer' has, since the Far Side publication, been adopted as a genuine anatomical term, and is used by multiple palaeontological authorities, including the Smithsonian Institution."

Finding this conclusive affirmation of the power of comic mind, wherever it may so manifest, doth massage the very ventricles of my play-prone heart.