RE: NANFA-- fish poetry

Hoover, Jan J WES (HOOVERJ_at_wes.army.mil)
Fri, 21 Jan 2000 10:11:27 -0600

I'm not a linguist, but I admire them greatly. My guess is that it refers
to the shape of the fish. "Billies" are cylindrical clubs used by bobbies
in England (at least in those old Sherlock Holmes movies) or cyclindrical
cooking gear (as in Waltzing Matilda). The word gar comes from an old word
meaning spear. So, a "billy gar" might be a cyclindrical, spear-shaped
fish. Just recently, I learned that the early Portuguese explorers in North
America used a single word (Picoes) to refer to a "pike" weapon and a "pike"
fish. Overall shapes, and habits, of gars and pikes are similar so I'm
assuming the ways in which their names were derived would be similar.

Off topic - There is a great book (fiction) about a linguist and his
encounters with federal agencies during WWII called "Zotz," by Walter Karig.
Saw the movie as a kid, but really enjoyed the book as an adult.

>Interesting interpretation of the "billy gar". So gars are actually
servants
of Satan, put on this earth for the sole malicious purpose of cruelly eating

smaller fishes to further the cause of evil (not because they need to eat or

anything). Btw, does anyone know what the hell "billy" in this context is
supposed to mean?<

<< "...And brooding there, the Devil, with the sole intent to mar,
Produced that foul abortion that we call the Billy Gar!

He took a slimy snake, and with a deft and devlish skill,
He fastened on some fins and then a long and saw-tooth bill;
Then breathing in its gaping jaws the instincts of a shark,
And the snarling, snapping malice of the cur without its bark,
He added the repulsiveness and the horror of the bat,
And a skillful, subtle blending of the vulture and the rat;
Then spat upon his handiwork - a loathsome, foul array,
And cast it in the waters there to lurk and prowl and prey..."

-- The Fable of the
Billy Gar >>

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