Oh help!  Wes says this conversation is getting drained - no Wes, at this
point it is getting truly bizarre!  The posts by Carlos and Maurizio confirmed
my suspicion that many subscribers may not have any idea at all what this
inane conversation is about!  Who was it that said "a bad joke is a joke that
needs to be explained"?  Anyway, for the sake of those whose knowledge of
American vulgarisms may not be current, here's the explanation!
It started when someone referred to the American robin, a bird whose
scientific name is Turdus migratorius.
Then I mentioned that Cypraea turdus is called the thrush cowrie because
Turdus means thrush (a family of birds).
Someone else jokingly picked up on the fact that the word "turdus" resembles
the American slang term "turd", which means a piece of excrement.  This led to
introduction of the term "doo-doo", which is a sort of juvenile expression
meaning the same thing (you might ask a toddler if he has doo-doo in his
diaper).
Oh please!  Laugh break here!
I said that "turdus" could not mean "doo-doo" because no-one would name a bird
the "migratory doo-doo".
(Am I really explaining this??  Will I ever be able to hold my head high
again??)
Then the rest of the comments followed.  So, Carlos and Maurizio, we were not
discussing the dodo (which I realize is extinct), but rather "doo-doo",
meaning bird excrement!  Incidentally, dodo means simpleton over here, just as
it does over there!  Any further discussion on this thread puts the writer at
risk of being so classified!
Ciao!
Paul M.