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Mermaids

do you believe in mermaids?

  • yes

    Votes: 8 25.0%
  • no

    Votes: 18 56.3%
  • undecided

    Votes: 4 12.5%
  • i am decended from one!

    Votes: 2 6.3%

  • Total voters
    32
It actually saddens me to read this type of stuff - people who are disturbed or crying out for help or attention make the "news". I guess ordinary people getting on with their lives in a normal way, relatively content with their lot, don't get media attention.
 
Webbed feet?

Option A: Slight webbing between toes?

Option B: massively-extended tarsal bones in both feet (including the toes) and a wide vascularised loose covering of skin with cartilage edging, with hugely-developed musculature in the whole legs and ankles...

Let me guess which Option it wil be (hint...not Option B. Or I will eat my flippers)

ps where's the plural mermaids @XBergMann ?


I put Mermaids (plural with an S) in the title then realised it was just one mermaid and not a herd of them so I clarified it to avoid disappointment among those who are only interested in congregations of mermaids as opposed to single ones.

The word ones being a case in point as a plural singularity.
 
According to the (admittedly unofficial and somewhat tongue-in-cheek ... ) Stoakes-Whibley Natural Index of Supernatural Collective Nouns, the collective term for mermaids is a 'gossip.' :D

2009-10-30-566nouns.gif


Image URL: http://wondermark.com/c/2009-10-30-566nouns.gif
 
There's another candidate term (for a group of mermaids) from literature - specifically from Anne of Green Gables.

In Chapter 15 of the 2015 edition on Google Books (see URL below) is a passage that reads:
"... Anne was a little tired of the noise and merriment. She slipped through the hall to a back door that opened almost on the bay, and flitted down a flight of rocky steps to the shore, past a little grove of pointed firs. How divine the cool salt air was after the sultry evening! How dream-like that ship which had sailed at the rising of the moon and was now approaching the harbor bar! It was a night when you might expect to stray into a dance of mermaids."

This scene occurs as Anne leaves a party (?) at which there was dancing, so the phrase may just as likely be a nod to the dance just abandoned as a reference to some known term for a group of mermaids.

URL for Google Books / 2015 edition quoted:

https://books.google.com/books?id=reIHCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT746&lpg=PT746&dq="dance of mermaids" "green gables"&source=bl&ots=QkSxydyXnX&sig=mdR5SYD1yckVc4r6RSSs759IAb4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjI96i3-pLTAhUP8GMKHXmDCJoQ6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q="dance of mermaids" "green gables"&f=false
 
I feel that it should be a gaggle of gargoyles.
 
Thank you for your assistance everyone in defining the collective for a group of mermaids.

Sadly nothing I have yet read meets the scariness of the collective description of a group of crows though
 
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Sadly nothing I have yet read meets the scariness of the collective description of a group of crows though
It gives them a rather harsh reputation.
 
Mermaids gather to compete for UK title
By Linda Serck BBC News

The UK's top mermaids are gathering this weekend in Northampton to battle it out for the national Miss Mermaid crown. But just what is it that motivates someone to don a tail and morph into a creature that is half-woman, half-fish? The BBC has dived into this unusual world to find out more.

"Like most young girls growing up, I always wanted to be a mermaid," says reigning Miss Mermaid UK, 25-year-old Grace Page, from Reading.
"I've always had a passion for singing, and, since a young age I've loved having long naturally blonde hair, and the sea fascinates me - so creating a career around actually performing as a mermaid just made so much sense.

"I was slightly apprehensive about being Miss Mermaid UK; after my minimal pageant experience I didn't know how I would fare against professional mermaids from around the world. But Miss Mermaid International really is different to anything you've ever thought about pageants. Whilst in Egypt [where the international finals are held] a huge focus of what we did was giving back to the community and raising awareness for marine conservation.

"We visited local schools, did litter picks at the beaches and removed litter from the sea and reefs and even put together some awareness videos."
...

"If you want to be a professional mermaid it is essential that you train as a free diver and hold a free diving qualification. This will allow you to be able to hold your breath for longer periods of time and, more importantly, you will be able to do so safely.

"Becoming a professional mermaid is a huge investment - tails, training, insurance, marketing and so much more - not to mention the amount of time it takes out of your life if you're serious. As with all skilled and entertainment jobs you need to have a passion for it to succeed."

etc...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-40675250
 
what makes mermaids so damn sexy

i used to have a huge print of bob carlos clarkes paint me with water in the upper floor
 
I hate the modern mermaids, a proper mermaid should be topless and lure men to their deaths using their feminine Willie's....or something
 
The ones with feminine willies are ladyboys, not mermaids.

It's an important distinction. They are both women on the upper half, with something fishy going on beneath the waist.
 
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Doctor Who - well Jon Pertwee anyway - claimed to have found the right hole.

Late last night, in one of those weird synchronicities, I was seeing how far I could go in reconstructing the record library of terrible, old things I had as a child. A dismal compilation, misleadingly named "Time for a Laugh!" could be almost completely rebuilt from online digital files.

Believe it or not, that Pertwee mermaid song was one of the better things! "pdunno:

I may post some of the real horrors in the WTF thread later . . . :lalala:
 
they should beguile, like the best of women

... Yet they must always disappoint when it comes to the culmination of that which they imply, if not tease outright, like a non-trivial percentage of their terrestrial sisters. :roll:

:evillaugh:
 
... Yet they must always disappoint when it comes to the culmination of that which they imply, if not tease outright, like a non-trivial percentage of their terrestrial sisters. :roll:

:evillaugh:
Well, I've been disappointed by plenty of the latter so one of the former would be neither here nor there.:cool2:
 
Has anyone heard any legends of mermaids visiting the harbour/beaches of Fowey in Cornwall?
Scrolling through my Twitter feed, I came a cross a lovely picture of a solitary cross situated at the mouth of Fowey harbour. There are a number of historic reasons attributed to it's origins, most of a religious nature, however one story goes that it marks the place where a mermaid was last sighted.
Exploring this further, there seems to be little information out there.
I also came across another picture of Readymoney Cove, where a mermaid is said to visit during winter storms.

The Fowey Cross:
foweycross.jpg


Punches Cross, Pulruan
Readymoney Cove, Cornwall
 
Has anyone heard any legends of mermaids visiting the harbour/beaches of Fowey in Cornwall?
Scrolling through my Twitter feed, I came a cross a lovely picture of a solitary cross situated at the mouth of Fowey harbour. There are a number of historic reasons attributed to it's origins, most of a religious nature, however one story goes that it marks the place where a mermaid was last sighted.
Exploring this further, there seems to be little information out there.
I also came across another picture of Readymoney Cove, where a mermaid is said to visit during winter storms.

The Fowey Cross:
View attachment 25993

Punches Cross, Pulruan
Readymoney Cove, Cornwall

“Popular legend has it that Jesus visited Fowey as a child, along with Joseph of Arimathea who was a merchant visiting local tin mines in which he had a commercial interest. At the entrance to the River, on the eastern side below the cliffs to the south-west of St Saviour's Point, there is a cross to commemorate this supposed visit. This cross is marked on very early charts and was maintained by monks from Tywardreath. The cross is known locally as "Punches Cross", supposedly derived from the name of Pontius Pilate.”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fowey#Religious_sites
maximus otter
 
"Like most young girls growing up, I always wanted to be a mermaid," says reigning Miss Mermaid UK, 25-year-old Grace Page, from Reading.
"I've always had a passion for singing, and, since a young age I've loved having long naturally blonde hair, and the sea fascinates me - so creating a career around actually performing as a mermaid just made so much sense.

What sort of young girl wants to be a mermaid? I am disturbed.

And Reading seems a sensible place for one to come from to me...

Notice she seemingly has no genine talent....
 
what makes mermaids so damn sexy

i used to have a huge print of bob carlos clarkes paint me with water in the upper floor
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

I hate the modern mermaids, a proper mermaid should be topless and lure men to their deaths using their feminine Willie's....or something
Remembering I read somewhere that during the Victorian era mermaids were depicted as human-like... a bit lower, I looked for images, and I found these quite not safe for work examples:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Elisabeth_Jerichau_Baumann_havfruen.jpg
http://victorian-era.org/charles-ed...aphy.html/mermaids-frolicking-in-the-sea-1883
https://www.sothebys.com/en/articles/the-subtle-eroticism-of-john-william-waterhouses-nymphs (maybe subtle has a different meaning in English, compared to the cognate word sutil in Portuguese; whatever, you have been warned)
http://www.strangehistory.net/2015/03/18/nude-victorian-mermaids/ (for whatever reason, the link omits the word "Disturbingly" on the article title)
 
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Mermaids - the body found is an entertaining enough mondo documentary if any mermaid fans are looking for something to watch today .. it's sort of part 'Alien Autopsy', part 'Avatar'. It's also free to watch on Amazon at the moment ..

 
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