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u/1800-bakes-a-lot Jun 09 '21
Rhinos are basically bald and buff unicorns.
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u/gmorenz Jun 09 '21
There are wild elephants in the country, and numerous unicorns, which are very nearly as big. They have hair like that of a buffalo, feet like those of an elephant, and a horn in the middle of the forehead, which is black and very thick. They do no mischief, however, with the horn, but with the tongue alone; for this is covered all over with long and strong prickles and when savage with any one they crush him under their knees and then rasp him with their tongue. The head resembles that of a wild boar, and they carry it ever bent towards the ground. They delight much to abide in mire and mud. 'Tis a passing ugly beast to look upon, and is not in the least like that which our stories tell of as being caught in the lap of a virgin; in fact, 'tis altogether different from what we fancied.
- Marco Polo
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u/Trellert Jun 09 '21
I hate when "quotes" from historical figures are so clearly a translation written by some British guy in the 1800s.
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u/gmorenz Jun 09 '21 edited Jun 09 '21
Henry Yule, 1920, to be precise. The original is in old french, it wouldn't go over so well on reddit ;)
Edit: I don't even know enough to find the original page, but I believe this is a scan of the correct source document if you're interested: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b9059312q/f7.item.r=Fr%201116
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u/BonerPorn Jun 09 '21
Do academic papers require the translator to be cited as well? I would imagine they should. We should probably push that to get used in more general contexts too.
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u/AgentDrake Jun 09 '21
When a translation is used, yeah, but often the original text is quoted; then we go with citing the specific editor/edition/manuacript of the text.
And yes, it'd be awesome if people mentioned the translator in more general contexts. Sometimes famous and accessible good translations aren't exactly precise.
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u/WordLimp6369 Jun 09 '21
Do academic papers require the translator to be cited as well?
Yes, of course. It goes even further: the orginal text is compared to all translations, and discussed as to why the translators chose to translate this way instead of that way, etc.
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u/Trellert Jun 09 '21
Oh I wasn't calling you out, it just annoys me. Imagining Marco polo saying "covered all over with long and strong prickles and when savage with any one they crush him under their knees and then rasp him with their tongue.". It just sounds SO British.
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u/Crowbarmagic Jun 10 '21
Old translations can be a tricky thing though, even with a dictionary in hand. It's this balance between literally translating things, and translating it the way it was meant to be read. To properly convey the intended message so to say.
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u/wbrd Jun 09 '21
People used to mistake manatees for mermaids, so a rhino is definitely a unicorn.
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u/The_Ogler Jun 09 '21
How did Scotland come to fancy them then?
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u/EchoRex Jun 09 '21
The romans.
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u/[deleted] Jun 09 '21
the person who invented unicorns was probably blind as a bat and came across a Rhino
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u/boomkinburger Jun 09 '21
Rhinos are chubby unicorns. I have a t-shirt that says so. So it must be true.
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u/The-Insomniac Jun 10 '21
In a documentary i watched they said prehistoric rhinos, specifically the Elasmotherium which had one big horn on its forehead, could have been the source of the unicorn mythology if someone dug up sone fossils. Unicorns are weird though because we don't really have any idea of where the origins came from. It also doesn't help that people claimed that drinking out of the the horn of a unicorn would prevent you from being poisoned. And naturally narwhal horn was the closest thing the 'snake oil salesmen' could find, and kings in many parts of the world didn't know what narwhals were so they got away with it.
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u/Risky_Pete_ Jun 09 '21
Ive never seen either of them outside of tv. Totally both fictional
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u/corvenzo Jun 09 '21
Never been to a zoo?
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u/Risky_Pete_ Jun 09 '21
Not one with a giraffe or unicorn
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u/BladeOfUWU Jun 09 '21
Giraffes are extremely common in zoo's how you not see one? I was able to feed one
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u/CurryMustard Jun 09 '21
Hornless unicorns are also common at zoos
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u/Bandit__Heeler Jun 09 '21
Are they? I've been to several zoos and never seen one. Plenty of giraffes and elephants
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u/cesarmac Jun 09 '21
I've seen stripped hornless unicorns at zoos.
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u/N8_Tge_Gr8 Jun 09 '21
stripped
Yeah, they have to be properly flayed before they can throw them into the lion enclosure.
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u/theycallmethevault Jun 09 '21
I was just commenting the same! Horses aren’t a thing at zoos, I figured they’ve got to be referring to another kind of animal? 🤷♀️
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u/Dank_Toastey Jun 09 '21
Zebras possibly, also I’ve seen horses at zoos
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u/theycallmethevault Jun 09 '21
Huh. Neat. Learn something new every day! =)
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u/44problems Jun 09 '21
Some zoos I've been to have "farm" sections for kids with horses and cows etc.
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u/beepbooping Jun 10 '21
I've been to a handful of Zoos in the US. They generally have an area for farm animals.
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u/SnackPrince Jun 09 '21
What about petting zoos
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u/theycallmethevault Jun 09 '21
Never been to a petting zoo. I’ve seen plenty of horses though. Mucked out more than my fair share of stalls & plenty of time tossing hay bales from the back of a pickup truck. Even got to pet a thoroughbred yearling that later sold for $1.2 million! I know that’s not a lot for a yearling but it’s the most expensive horse I’ve ever given a pet. 😋
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u/SnackPrince Jun 09 '21
I can pretty confidently say that of all the horses I've seen and pet, none were worth 1.2 mil (That I know of)! Impressive. And I'm sure they thank you for taking care of them with your hard work
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u/theycallmethevault Jun 09 '21
Zebras? Goats? Donkeys? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a horse at a zoo & I just went to a zoo last weekend. (But I did grow up in “horse-country”, where you can see a horse farm on your way to WalMart from a Starbucks and 3 more from there to the mall.) LOL 😋
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u/Oops_I_Cracked Jun 09 '21
Denver zoo has horses.
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u/HuaAnNi Jun 09 '21
I went to a zoo in China and it had dogs. Like regular small house dogs.
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u/SuitableDragonfly Jun 09 '21
Horned unicorns, too, given that depictions of unicorns almost certainly came from people seeing rhinos.
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u/weeghostie00 Jun 09 '21
Who would describe a rhino as a horse with a horn on it's head? Rhinos are tanks and the horn is on the nose, I don't buy that explanation
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u/SnackPrince Jun 09 '21 edited Jun 09 '21
Look up Elasmotherium sibiricum to see a 35,000 year old Siberian horse-like animal that could easily be the basis of the fabrication of a unicorn especially when described through various retellings in a time when misunderstanding nature was rampant and accurate depiction more rare. As well as medieval descriptions of a giraffe and "questing beast" as they describe it as having "the neck of a snake...", "...feet and legs like an ox, and the head of a camel...", "...but the spots of a pard or leopard...", "...so it is also called camelopard" of which it's Latin name is "Giraffa camelopardalis". Further proving my point about misunderstanding nature vs. accurate depiction vis-a-vis the time period
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u/Snowbouy Jun 09 '21
Horned unions can be found at some zoos but they are usually called a rhinoceros
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u/_2f Jun 09 '21
Not suitable for all climates, you don't know OP's country
I think I have not seen a giraffe either in my life - and I live in a suitable climate country.
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u/jibjab23 Jun 09 '21
They didn't look up, they probably thought they were looking at a leopard spotted tree.
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u/NooAccountWhoDis Jun 09 '21
Giraffes in person are crazy. Even as an adult I was amazed at both them and hippos.
It almost feels like seeing real life mythological creatures. As sad as zoos can be I would definitely recommend visiting a world class one.
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u/Catjak56 Jun 09 '21
Counterparts coming in hot
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u/JamesLiptonIcedTea Jun 09 '21
Thought I recognized the name, then I saw the drum set. Followed this guy a lot back in the heyday of rock band.
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u/Agreeable_year_8350 Jun 09 '21
Giraffes were invented when Chuck Norris uppercutted a horse.
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u/PenileDestructor69 Jun 09 '21 edited Jun 09 '21
I haven’t seen a Chuck Norris joke for a long time
Edit: Thank you for the extra pp
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u/ShellyXT Jun 09 '21
You don't see the Chuck Norris joke, the Chuck Norris joke sees you
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u/Autumn1eaves Jun 09 '21
I haven’t seen a Yakov Smirnoff joke for a long time.
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u/kalitarios Jun 09 '21
Did someone say [Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker]?
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u/Batchet Jun 09 '21
I used to like Yakov Smirnoff jokes.
I still do but I used to, too
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u/[deleted] Jun 09 '21
I just checked his twitter, he sells gold now. Seems like Chuck enjoys scamming the elderly.
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u/-pithandsubstance- Jun 09 '21
I thought this was a joke at first, but nope, he's just an old scammy asshole now :-(
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u/frothy_pissington Jun 09 '21
Chuck always was a POS, the Chuck Norris joke meme just whitewashed it for a while.
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u/ssp25 Jun 09 '21
When chuck Norris's daughter lost her virginity.... He found it and put it back
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u/Muppetude Jun 09 '21
But why would he do that? Isn’t it more lucrative to scam the elderly by shilling reverse mortgages.
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u/awesomerest Jun 09 '21
Isn't that what Tom Selleck is doing now?
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u/Muppetude Jun 09 '21
Yup. Made me lose a lot of respect for him the first time I saw one of his reverse mortgage commercials.
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u/awesomerest Jun 09 '21
Yeah I don't get it, he's already pretty old now and has a very nice cushion of money. So why go for a predatory job/role?
I'm sure they paid him well, but you're sacrificing your image for it (although he might have thought the money outweighed that now that's he's older and isn't in large roles). Idk, clearly I've thought a bit about these pointless dilemmas.
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u/my-other-throwaway90 Jun 10 '21
Sometimes I think the pursuit of money is alluring no matter how much money you already have. Otherwise Bezos would have been retired on his own private island a long time ago by now.
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u/Dr-StealYoGirl Jun 09 '21
By the time you see the chuck Norris joke, it’s already hit you
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u/Bakoro Jun 09 '21
I'm pretty sure that they went away around the same time that he started leaning into the jokes and using his renewed notoriety to advocate for his religious and political beliefs, and sell shit to old people.
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u/cjsv7657 Jun 09 '21
A guy where I work had his tool chest covered in Chuck Norris jokes. So I got to see them every day for years
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u/ihahp Jun 09 '21
geraffes are so dumb. stupid long horses.
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u/MagnificoReattore Jun 09 '21
Wow Chuck Norris and geraffes, feels like time travel.
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u/leftysarepeople2 Jun 09 '21
2011 reddit peak. Along with that stupid fucking narwhal and bacon obsession
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u/Solaralos Jun 09 '21 edited Jun 09 '21
._ o o \_`-)|_ ,"" \ ," ## | ಠ ಠ. ," ## ,-\__ `. ," / `--._;) ," ## / ," ## /→ More replies3
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u/SonOfTK421 Jun 09 '21
These were so funny…until I found out Chuck Norris is a garbage human.
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u/XFF_Gaming Jun 09 '21 edited Jun 10 '21
Edit: omg the upvotes (on the post) have doubled since I commented this.
Edit 2: It's now tripled on top of the double!
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u/FezCow Jun 09 '21
right? like this isn't really something heartwarming its more of a r/whitepeopletwitter post
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u/heavensdemon777 Jun 09 '21
r/giraffesarentreal would also like it
Edit: r/giraffesdontexist is what i was trying to link but both work
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u/noa01101000 Jun 09 '21
Seriously, how does this make sense on /r/MadeMeSmile?
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u/XFF_Gaming Jun 09 '21
I know right. Plus it’s got soo many upvotes. People forget Reddit is about Subs and not just posts.
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u/Icefrisbee Jun 09 '21
I agree they do forget about subs a lot. but what if this post did make them smile? Then it probably does fit here
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u/BonerPorn Jun 09 '21
There's a feedback loop once it gets to all. Even I was guilty of upvoting this before realizing it was on the wrong subreddit.
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u/Bobo3076 Jun 09 '21 edited Jun 10 '21
This is the most lost redditor I’ve seen in a while. Someone get them a map, they won’t find their way on their own.
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u/bon_sequitur Jun 09 '21
Watch the Heaven's Design Team clip on unicorns to learn in 2 minutes why they're biologically inviable
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u/pixxxistixxx Jun 09 '21
Fuck yeah! I'm teaching this to my five year old daughter who is in constant defense of The Unicorns Existence (its what she calls it)!
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u/R4D33 Jun 09 '21
Unicorns exist. they're just a bit fat and go by the name rhinoceros.
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u/[deleted] Jun 09 '21
Real unicorns live in the sea and have no legs.
Look at the Narwhal tusk and tell me that’s not a unicorn tusk.
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u/PancakeBuny Jun 09 '21
Which really isn’t something I’d hope he’d be teaching to a 5 year old…
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u/stapleduck112 Jun 09 '21
I thought you were about to say: …and learned how to swim, developed flippers, possibly started the mermaid myth and go by the name of Narwhal. I see what you did there!
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u/yoloarf01 Jun 09 '21
r/lostredditors if this made anyone smile pls give me some of your positive energy I need it.
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u/jaymole Jun 09 '21
moose camel with 40 ft neck that may hold the keys to beating heart disease bc of its magical cardiovascular system. stranger than fiction is right.
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u/bbildo Jun 09 '21
Unicorns exist. They just moved to the oceans and became narwhals. It was done so little girls would leave them the fuck alone.
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u/actualspaceturtle Jun 09 '21
What do I gotta pay for you to read me a bedtime story?
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u/bbildo Jun 09 '21
I got one about how dragons became the Hill’s Angels on The Benny Hill Show. I can’t read it to you unless we’re listening to Yakkity Sax though.
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u/EliteAssassin750 Jun 09 '21 edited Jun 09 '21
Well if Eda is to be believed, giraffes are demons that were banished into our world
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u/LadyLevia Jun 09 '21
https://youtu.be/6SHQoFgZYYI (Why unicorns suck)
https://youtu.be/jI85dL3ooVU (How Giraffes don’t)
This is a pretty good explanation.
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u/porcos3 Jun 09 '21
Nothing about the word unicorn points to a horse-like creature. It could really look like anything
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u/SamSepiol-ER28_0652 Jun 09 '21
Seriously, though.
I work with infants and toddlers, so I can’t help but see things through their eyes.
Lots of animals are super fucked up, but we are just used to them. But look at them- flamingos, hippos, armadillos, narwhals… There are some seriously weird creatures out there.
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u/Sharpiebanana Jun 09 '21
We should be glad unicorns don’t exist. They’d impale things and each other and would probably be carnivores.
The word “bear” comes from a word meaning “animal that shouldn’t be named” because they presumably believed if you talked about it they would show up. That’s how big of a problem Bears used to be to humans in general. Unicorns would be so much worse.
And don’t get me started on Pegasi. I’ll leave that to braver people.
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u/sirenwingsX Jun 10 '21
I think unicorns as we know them were probably just other animals that do exist being mislabeled by travelers to other countries after they got home. It's also well known that a lot of them made shit up to impress people after they returned.
An example might be a Nubian Ibex who possibly broke one of their horns in a fight, or was born with only one.
There is some speculation that what someone mightve described as a unicorn was actually a rhinoceros.
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u/superstrikergxyt Jun 09 '21
My brother said to me after seeing this and said its because we've seen giraffes but not unicorns My rebuttal we've seen narwhals but unicorns are somehow too much
Also: r/technicallythetruth
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u/GebPloxi Jun 09 '21
I will tell anyone who asks that I believe unicorns used to exist. I see no reason why they couldn’t or wouldn’t have been real, even as recent as 1000 years ago.
A horse with a horn... what is weird about that? We have whales with horns. There’s a species or boar (I think) that accidentally grows horns. I think there is a kind of mouse with a uni-horn too (this one I might be making up). Around the world, there are many species that are variations of deer (no I do not need a biologist to explain) and almost all of them have horns of some sort.
I think it is super likely that there was a kind of horse that had a horn. I think that I’ve heard that horses are not native to the English Isles, which maybe is because the unicorn was and became extinct.
We see unicorns as pure beings and such, but that mythology could easily explain how they would have become extinct. Maybe their population was struggling because they could only drink from very clean water sources. That requirement would have made them seem pure to humans because the unicorns would come to represent the pure waters. Then, the idea of a pure being would inevitably lead old world doctors and shamans believing that the unicorn could be used to make purifying medicines. With the assumptions that the population was struggling and that they could be found in certain places, it would be ez-pz for them to be hunted to extinction.
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u/solemini Jun 09 '21
This is, roughly speaking, the premise for the first and I think third episodes of Heaven's Design Team.
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u/tetragrammaton19 Jun 09 '21
And 90 percent of giraffes are gay, which make them even more of a conundrum.
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u/J328K Jun 09 '21
Kyle Brownlee’s one of my favorite drummers. That’s a nice surprise seeing his tweet on this subreddit
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u/doortoriver Jun 09 '21
Personally, I love the other point of view:
“What was it?”
“Well… kind of a giraffe, but… really short-necked? And bigger horns? Look, I know this sounds nuts…”
“How would it even support bigger horns with a shorter neck, Greg?”