Call a Smeerp a Rabbit/Quotes

"On the Planet Flargg, when the main character makes a snack from a thin slice of Sqroom meat between two rounds of Bhachto, he will still call it a sandwich."

- Terry Pratchett

"But at least it hadn't been hard to give the species a name. It looked like an enormously smaller version of a "hexapuma", and like the hexapuma, there was something very (or perhaps inevitably) feline about it. Of course, Stephanie knew "feline" actually referred only to a very specific branch of Old Terran evolution, but it had become customary over the centuries to apply Old Terran names to alien species (like the Sphinxian "chipmunks" or "near-pine"). Most claimed the practice originated from a sort of racial homesickness and a desire for familiarity in alien environments, but Stephanie thought it was more likely to stem from laziness, since it let people avoid thinking up new labels for everything they encountered. Despite all that, however, she'd discovered that "treecat" was the only possible choice when she started considering names, and she hoped the taxonomists would let it stand when she finally had to go public with her discovery, though she suspected rather glumly that her age would work against her in that regard."

- A Beautiful Friendship

"As it fell to the ground, a huge spider—if an eight-legged creature with spines instead of hair, many-faceted eyes, and a bloated, globular body weighing hundreds of pounds, may be called a spider—leaped upon it and, mighty mandibles against poisonous sting, the furious battle raged."

- The Skylark of Space

"Thimble is right on the ocean, and the seafood they have here is incredible. They've got what they call 'lobsters,' even if they don't look anything like ours—or like Old Earth's, for that matter..."

- Michelle Henke, of the planet Manticore, writing a letter home, Storm from the Shadows

"Rob: You just mind your own damn business when you fuck the shit up for the hell of it. That's horse slaughter! You'll get life in horse court!

Johny: Uh, unicorn court. They get pissed off when you call them horses.

Rob: Like when you call zephyrs Pegasuseseses.

Johny: What?

Rob: Nothing."

- Siblings, "Runesuck"