For Scicurious (still and always, the best ‘nym ever for a science writer)
The walruses were gathered,
Tens of K of walri strong
With their floes unfroze, the walrae
Joined a huge walrorum throng
They’re a sign of global warming,
Crammed together on the beach
They would rather float on icebergs
But there are no bergs to reach
If we kill them off, and all that’s left
Are photos, or some mural….
Then we’ll no more have to answer
“What is ‘walrus’ in the plural?”
The latest numbers are astonishing–35,000 walruses are gathered on an Alaskan beach, the tusked equivalent of an immigration nightmare. So many walri! But… like Richard Gere in “An Officer And A Gentleman”, these walrae are here because they “got nowhere else to go!” These huge numbers are Very Bad News, a quorum of walrorum that dares you to ignore’em.
Hey, don’t worry too much. Give it a few years, and we won’t need to know the plural for walrus any more.
Although, come to think of it… that’s the bad news.
