Mary's Monday Metazoan: I wonder why she thought of this one?

The Evergreen State website says: "(pronounced "GOO-ee-duck")" Why is geoduck pronounced like gooeyduck?

Could be because they're rather good to eat, actually.

And for those who don't know, it's pronounced something like "gooey duck."

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p

Apparently they're prized as an aphrodisiac in the far east. Jeez, people, sometimes a clam is just a clam.

It looks like some kind of biomechanical rifle that he's getting ready to lock and load!

Sweet!

When I was 14, my friends and I started a band called The Geoducks. We were awful.

I also did a project on the geoduck for one of my classes at school, I had a particularly empty headed teacher who almost wasn't going to let me present it to the class because it was "suggestive".

The Gooey Duck Song
(by Ron Konzak and Jerry and Judy Elfendahl)

You can hear the diggers say, as they're headed for the bay,
Oh I gotta dig a duck, gotta dig a duck a day,
'Cause I get a buck a duck, if I dig a duck a day,
So I gotta dig a duck, gotta dig a duck a day.

Chorus:
Dig a duck, dig a duck,
Dig a gooey duck
Dig a duck, dig a gooey duck,
Dig a duck a day.

Oh it takes a lotta of luck, and a certain kinda pluck
For to dig around the muck, for to get a gooey duck.
For he doesn't have a front and he doesn't have a back,
And he doesn't know Donald, and he doesn't go quack!

As they walk across the sand, nearly half a mile from land,
For to dig a gooey duck, for to dig them out by hand,
Oh it isn't any trouble and it doesn't take a shovel,
To find a gooey duck by looking for the bubble.

I'm a senior at Evergreen and the president of our little college informs all the incoming freshmen, every year, that the geoduck is the only animal that is both phallic and vulvic at the same time!

Any relation to the crocoduck?

That is one nasty-looking critter. I'm sure it's delicious chopped up and fried in butter, though.

One of my hobbies is geocaching. Pronounced as you would think... gee-oh-caching. Now I'm wondering if I should call it gooey caching? I have to admit that after slogging through some muddy swamps to find a cache, the activity has fit the gooey caching name on occasion. I've never found any geoducks though.

The appearance of geoduck's large, protruding siphon has led to the belief that the geoduck has the properties of an aphrodisiac.

Translation: It looks like a huge penis.

Does anyone have an explanation as to WHY it's not pronounced like it's spelled?

I mean, as long as the pronounciation doesn't have to match the spelling I might as well pronounce "geo-" as "crocko-".

Trivia.

The mascot of the North Carolina School of the Arts (who knew they needed a mascot) is....

The Fighting Pickle

carry on

That is one nasty-looking critter. I'm sure it's delicious chopped up and fried in butter, though.

What isn't?

On the pronunciation, Wikipedia has this to say:

The unusual name of the clam is derived from a Lushootseed (Nisqually) word gʷídəq[2] meaning "dig deep", and its phonemically counterintuitive spelling is likely the result of poor transcription rather than anything having to do with ducks. Alternate spellings include gweduc, gweduck, goeduck, and goiduck.

Fun Facts: Matt Groening went to Evergreen State College. It's a notorious "hippie school". Those are both reasons why in this Futurama Clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swDpWNKB5Co making fun of homeopathy, Evergreen State College is the name of the college on the degree.

*eyes keyboard* Oh I get it. Geoduck's a typo.

Translation: It looks like a huge penis.

*looks in pants* Nope seems normal sized to me?

(someone had to do it...)

Once caught a couple of those. Apparently my Grandmother thinks they're delicious.

I'll take her word for it.

I like Evergreen -- the teaching philosophy there is wonderful. I even applied for a job opening there about ten years ago.

I didn't get it. <sniffle>

PZ,

the philosophy and the reality are, um, different.

Don't feel so bad. :)

They're weird beasties, but they are quite tasty.

As for the pronunciation, I'm not 100% on this, but I think it's a somewhat botched Americanization of the Native American name for the thing.

Oh hey! The Wiki! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoduck#Etymology

Holy shit! From the WDFW site:

They attain their maximum size by about 15 years, and can live at least as long as 168 years.

Impressive.

&ltthe todd&gt
I've got a geoduck for you. In my pants.
&lt/the todd&gt

168 years?!?

There's only one career for a geoduck that old, and it starts with the line "you're not the regular pizza-delivery bivalve."

imroykun wrote:

Any relation to the crocoduck?

Indeed, this extant transitional form between rocks and ducks is not only the missing link we needed to "prove" evolution, but also abiogenesis! Hooray, our vast conspiracy of Darwinism grows even stronger!

However, science still can't explain the too-perfect coincidence of both male and female geoducks evolving independently. Someone will need to address this glaring hole in the theory immediately. I would do it myself, but I'm busy all week shaking my fist at the Almighty.

Kevin, I sense some geoduck envy.

that the geoduck is the only animal that is both phallic and vulvic at the same time!

Cool, like a bagpipe. Except... I'm not getting the vulvic so much. I did think HOLY SHIIIIII while scrolling through the blog and had to scroll back up to see if I saw what I thought I saw.

You have to turn them 90° from the photos above, and look at the opening of the shell. Definitely vulvic.

@smartbrainus:

If you mean the geoducks are envious, then yes, you're completely right

W
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!

I'm a senior at Evergreen and the president of our little college informs all the incoming freshmen, every year, that the geoduck is the only animal that is both phallic and vulvic at the same time!

An ingenious young man, name Gene,
Invented a fucking machine.
Convave and convex,
It could please either sex,
And play with itself in between.

I got a strong feeling that the guy in the photo is trying to figure out the best way to wrap his 'duck' in bacon.

I'm thinking bacon condoms.

Anyone? Hello? Is this thing on?

Pee Zed, you botched the link to the UCSC mascot thread.

I'm not sure I would eat anything that looks like a huge penise. :(

So, we've got the Santa Cruz Banana Slugs, the Evergreen State Geoducks, the NC School for the Arts Fighting Pickles, the Blooming Prairie (MN) Blossoms....I'm sort of hoping that if we can ever get rid of "Fighting Sioux" we can be the UND Sundogs.

These are way better the having some old eagle or falcon or cardinal or bovine on our sidlines.

I'm not sure I would eat anything that looks like a huge penise. :(

You don't have to swallow, you know.

PZ

I graduated from Evergreen about nine years ago. I've been reading Pharyngula for about two and a half years. I don't know if you and Evergreen, or you and Olympia would get along. Lots of woo. It can be an amazing school if you have the right perspective. But I promise you every bad joke or stereotype you have heard about the school is true, including the one about doing interpretive dances instead of writing papers. I always felt like there was a huge bubble surrounding the school that kept reality out.

Years ago, I heard that women in supermarkets choose fruit that most closely approximate the size of their own breasts... I wonder how men choose geoducks?? LOL

There's a particular stretch of beach by our cottage in Point Roberts where thousands of geoducks dwell, only exposing their siphons above the sand. My uncle refers to it as "a burial ground for perverts".

Oh, lord, the geoduck. I thought I'd left that behind forever when I moved away from Olympia. If there's ever a creature that might get me to buy into Intelligent Design in the "Clearly, God's a pervert" category, this would be it.

The fact that they spurt water out of the end is just the start of the ickyness for the guys. I understand they're good eating, though.

But I promise you every bad joke or stereotype you have heard about the school is true, including the one about doing interpretive dances instead of writing papers.

Yeah, but not in the science programs!

I always felt like there was a huge bubble surrounding the school that kept reality out.

Every college has that to some degree, though. It has its good side and its bad side.

(graduated 20 years ago)

Fun Facts: Matt Groening went to Evergreen State College.

Another: it's pronounced "Gree-oh-ing."

or "Throatwarblermangrove." Not sure.

Geez, PZ, how about a NSFW warning!?!?!!

What? That's not a penis?

Sometimes, I think a picture just says it all. Commentary would simply be redundant......but MAJeff, OM proves me wrong in post #35.

MOAR PENIS

aka, "Holy penis, Batman!"

Dear God in Heaven! That awful creature is clearly half devil, half huge, wobbly pudendum, and I must protect the children of the world by demanding that the internet police take to the oceans immediately, armed only with Bibles and Shotguns (a winning combination, I find) and destroy every last one of these disgusting-yet-strangely-stimulating MONSTERS!

How could you ever let your nearest and dearest set foot in the sea again, knowing these perverted, lewd characters were lurking just below the surface, ready to... to... SQUIRT at them. This must STOP!

Let every graven image of them be burned, and the very word Geoduck be expunged from our memories.

That'll teach 'em!

PZ, you seem to have forgotten that we do not all have administrator access on Science Blogs.

The ones that large aren't very good eating. They need to be around a foot or so, that's when they are tender and delicious.

Never heard of them being used as an aphrodisiac either. If so, they wouldn't allow children to eat them.

Spciy geoduck with XO sauce... mmmm

Go, Geoducks Go does not seem to fit Fly, Eagles Fly, so I don't know how it goes. /Philadelphia Eagles' theme song