Re: Weekly Vocab 9

On Wed, 28 May 2003 00:01:26 -0400, John Cowan <cowan@...>
wrote:

>Joseph Fatula scripsit:
>
>> A quahog's not a clam???  It sure looks like one.  What is it then,
>> technically?
>
>Well, it depends on whether you use "clam" generically for any bivalved
>mollusk, or whether you use it narrowly for ... I forget what, but
>a clam is a clam, a quahog is a quahog, and a scallop is a scallop.
I recognized the quote, and I happen to have my Stephen Jay Gould book
collection on the shelf behind me, so I looked it up....

"I well remember the reprimand I received from a New England shipmate when
I applied the informal scientific term "clam" to all bivalved mollusks (to
him a clam is only the steamer, _Mya arenaria_): "A quahog is a quahog, a
clam is a clam, and a scallop is a scallop.""

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