@蓝大卫

Very different thought patterns indeed! I was going to ask how you describe 触角 in English.Thanks.:smile:

Yes, the "fish" term, I've noticed that, too. We call abalone 鲍鱼(bao4 yu2), whale 鲸鱼(jing1 yu2), alligator 鳄鱼(e4 yu2). Also we have a series of words to describe aquatic animals that starts with 海, ocean, like 海豚（hai3 tun2）, dolphin, 海蜇（hai3 zhe2）, jellyfish, 海参（hai3 shen1）, sea cucumber, 海龟（hai3 gui1）, turtle, etc.

@LanZi.

Another interesting observation. We call the 触角 "arms" but the word you used is translated "antenna" or "feeler" at YellowBridge. I believe the Greek derivation of the word means "eight feet". Neither is incorrect, just a difference way of describing.

I also find it interesting that Chinese uses the word for "fish" to describe aquatic animals.

An octopus is a mollusk, but not technically a fish.

Thanks for these lessons, they reveal some differences in thought patterns.

@蓝大卫

Interesting! I never seriously thought about the names of these animals and why they're called what they're called.

海豚——海里的小猪，可能因为它们很胖：）

章鱼——又叫“八爪鱼（eight-claw-fish）”, 因为他们有八个触角。But for 章鱼，I would say "seal-印章，封印" makes the most sense here, because seals need ink to print, and octopus spurt ink and also they have lots of 吸盘.

魔鬼鱼 —— Exactly.

你开玩笑吗？:razz: 我不要跟鲨鱼一起游泳！

I'm curious about the meanings of the names. I looked up the etymology at YellowBridge.com

I'm asking these questions because I'm trying to get an idea of what the Chinese mindset is when

they describe these animals:

海豚 -- dolphin. -- literally "ocean suckling pig"

章鱼 -- octopus -- literally "chapter; seal; section; movement (of symphony); camphor laurel tree; lumber; surname Zhang fish" Which of these words most closely describes what the Chinese mind

thinks of regarding the octopus.

魔鬼鱼 -- Stingray, literally "devil fish", I suppose because of the barb in the stingray's tail?