Let’s hear it for the Aardvark

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Someone asked me in jest recently why I had added a tag in one of my submissions for the word Aardvark, as it probably gets few takers on Mylot. This is sadly true, and though expecting I had an exclusive usage on the tag, I found the lovely African creature was mentioned once before on Mylot back in 2008 by a writer called @jess368 though Jess sadly hasn’t returned since Mylot was rebooted. The Aardvark deserves more attention than it gets, both as an animal and as a word. Though it lives on ants and termites, it isn’t actually an anteater family member, but more closely related to the shrew and the mole. Aardvarks are not aggressive but they can use their digging talons violently in self-defence if cornered. They have excellent hearing. Aardvarks produce some amusement among comedians. Monty Python refer to a children’s book called ‘Ethel The Aardvark Goes Quantity Surveying’. A popular cartoon series featuring and named after my eponymous namesake, Arthur makes him an Aardvark. Finally, there is the word itself, which is great for word games. It comes from the Afrikaans language and means simply earth pig. It guarantees the aardvark first place among all animals in the dictionaries, closely followed by the aard-wolf, a jackal like wld dog from Africa. At school, a common word game set by teachers is to have pupils put words on the board one letter at a time. The trick is to not finish a word of three letters or more, but also not add letters that mean that no word can be created. The loser finishes the word or ends up creating a non-existent word. So if the letters given up to your go spell out FORCIN you are trapped into completing FORCING or forfeiting by making a non-word. I liked playing when the person before me started the game with an A as I would add the next A and doom the players still coming to finish AARVARK, or falsely challenge me to prove the word exists - false challenges also put players out of the games. So, I have a particular love of the little Aardvark, and as the old joke about hard work says aardvark never hurt anyone. Arthur (not the aardvark) Chappell