English crash course "a Canine" is a dog?

[David]

Originally Posted by kijinbear

By the way, I think the scientific name for cats begins with Felis, not Felix. (Felix means "lucky" in Latin.)

That's why cats are said to have nine lives!

[denverharless]

Indeed, interesting off-topic thread. For what it's worth, I suspect that police and customs officials (such as you would find at Gatwick airport) refer to their dogs as "canines" or "K-9s" because they want people to see them as an extension of law enforcement, and not as warm & fuzzy pets. Canines sound scarier than dogs.

[chrisretusn]

Felix, as in Felix that Cat, is what come to mind for me.

When I think of K-9, I always think of military, police or customs service dog.

We have a K-9 cemetery here at the former Clark Air Base.

[drew]

Originally Posted by denverharless

... I suspect that police and customs officials (such as you would find at Gatwick airport) refer to their dogs as "canines" or "K-9s" because they want people to see them as an extension of law enforcement, and not as warm & fuzzy pets. Canines sound scarier than dogs.

Jay that explains it to me. Seems very plausible explanation
and K-9s are almost like a SciFi Movie epic even
Earth Attacked by the Ruthless K-9s Aliens!

[webecedarian]

I can't imagine why anyone would avoid the word "dog." In speaking conversational English, you'd never use "canine" except occasionally as an adjective (like "Fido has the canine version of the flu.")

[Tsunami]

Felis or Felix ... Maybe I'm wrong there. But then, I'm curious if custom control staff know the Latin words for all those species, so it would make sense to at least add the more generic "dog" or "cat" in an animal passport, plus an actual picture of the pet. I can imagine custom control workers on bordercrossings scratching their head over a "felis domesticus" whereas "cat" would make the border crossing a lot less complex. Also, even in different cultures, I doubt anyone would allow someone with a wolf in his car to cross the border (other than the fact I've never heard anyone carrying a wolf in his car )

Actually, I have a chihuahua. Next time I travel (which will be in two months' time) I'll pay attention whether his passport states "lupus domesticus" or "chihuahua" or a very specific "lupus chihuahua".

I still wonder what's the use of animal passports without the picture though. Even if they have a chip... Border crossings have to go fast in most cases, so there's little time for scans and such. Who guarantees the passport stating "dog" or "lupus" is the passport of the specific dog that is in the car?

[drew]

The program (Tv-series) I saw where about the special trained dogs
that can sniff out narcotics and other things people love to take in
illegally hiding them among onions and other goods on big trucks???
Lorries?

So maybe the speaker love to use those latin names so it sounds cool?
K-9s or similar short for Canine is kind of fun.

[Adrian Bell]

In the UK we use both truck and lorry, I'm not sure about the US.

I know that a boat is smaller than a ship. The word "ship" originated from the Norwegian "skip", so bigger boats that came from far away (Scandinavia) became ships.

[DrStrabismus]

Originally Posted by robert@fm

London has the Isle of Dogs (an artificial eyot created by joining the two sides of the Poplar Peninsula with a ship canal), the name of which is probably a pun (it was an isle of docks),

There are a number of theories about the origin of the name, I don't think anyone really knows, but it's very unlikely it has anything to do with the docks which were only built a couple of hundred years ago. London's historic docks were up around the Tower of London.