I don’t even know where to begin.
How is this analogy even remotely helpful to those of us currently living in the Cenozoic Era?
About Jenny
By day: cell biologist at UCL. By night: novelist, broadcaster, science writer, sci-lit-art pundit, blogger and Editor of LabLit.com. I blog about my life in science, not the facts and figures.
Don’t be silly, everyone knows what dinosaurs sound like – haven’t you seen Jurassic Park?
What is more worrying is it doesn’t specify whether your baby will sound like, say, a velociraptor, a pterodactyl or a T-rex. This is important to know, to avoid unnecessary shocks.
I know – the lack of specificity was shocking! How am I meant to distinguish reptilian leisure howls from indigestion?
Ooh Brian, don’t let Henry know you called a pterosaur a dinosaur…
We’ve been asking him “Is that what a dinosaur sounds like?” Because, obviously, he and the authors of that book know…
I refer the honourable gentleman to my previous answer. As Jurassic Park is the definitive source, this is not an issue.
Sorry Brian, I keep forgetting Jurassic Park was a documentary.
Seriously though, I’m still none the wiser. Sometimes when he’s asleep he lets out a high-pitched squawk, but I’m not sure that’s what they’re talking about.
Don’t worry about the dinosaur effects – they will soon turn into something that sounds not unlike:
“CanIBorrow20QuidItsOnlyUntilFridayHonestIWillPayYouBackThisTime…”
It gets quite loud, sometimes… 🙂
How does the book know your baby is a ‘he’?
Birds are dinosaurs, so the squawk would be bird like, and taste like chicken.
John – HA HA!
Jim, although I’m a feminist, I’m also a writer, so don’t mind the use of he as a neutral third personal singular pronoun because the alternatives – a page full of clunky he/she‘s, or (s)he‘s, or the dreaded grammatically incorrect they just don’t cut it for me, flow-wise. (In my own writing, I try to generalize my sentences to plural subjects so I can use they legitimately). A lot of baby books alternate between he and she, but I find this rather conspicuous and self-conscious.
Henry, what if it was an underwater dinosaur?
An underwater dinosaur with a snorkle and flippers?
The most important noise, is, of course, that tiny little “bup” just before baby (gender nonspecified) projectile vomits all over the place. You’ve probably discovered this already though.
History doesn’t record if dinosaurs, pterosaurs, or extinct non-dinosaur marine reptiles (with or without snorkels and/or flippers) made this noise – mainly because history wasn’t invented when they were still around.
How anything I’ve just typed could be helpful, I just don’t know.
P.S. rpg’s link reminded me of this.
The F1 saves all his projectile vomiting until his Dad gets home. (Or at least, his mum is more careful deploying ample blast shields.)
I’ve been covered in things worse than baby vom.
But what bird would it be like? I can attest to the wide variety we here every morning: the burbling of Orpheus, Luna and Neville arguing with their toys, the linnies burbling their appreciation of Willi Brandt, the pocket parrots chatting between rooms, the various passerines with a more melodic cacophony, or the Grey Sisters grumpily telling everyone to just SHUT UP.
Frankly, I’m glad we don’t have any corvids. Yet.
Jenny – what if it were an underwater dinosaur? Tut.
Bob – wow, it must be very……atmospheric.