I really hate explaining jokes. My cousin Ozzie* doesn’t get jokes. He is also prone to leaving non sequitur comments on my timeline along with requests to explain jokes. I never know how to reply. It’s annoying. OTOH he was a Hillary Clinton supporter (Most of my cousins are BernieOs) so there’s that.
I’ve never been sure how much is due to neurodivergence and how much is just due to BAJ. However, the latest example has me thinking he just doesn’t read a post before commenting. This one was on his aunt’s timeline so I was not obliged to respond though I was tempted. She shared a story about Russian ships that broke a path through Arctic ice in 1984 and rescued a pod of trapped Beluga whales. His reply: And then they harvested their eggs and made a fortune.
C’mon, man. Obviously, he only read as far as the word Beluga.
I love the history of words so I headed straight to the Online Etymology Dictionary and this is what I found out:
Beluga comes from belo, the Russian word for white and the augmentative suffix -uga. So beluga means big white. Makes sense. Whales can be big and white and so can sturgeon.
Belo, in turn, derives from the proto Indo-European root bhel "to shine, flash, burn," also "shining white" and forming words for bright colors.
It forms all or part of: beluga; Beltane; black; blancmange; blanch; blank; blanket; blaze (n.1) "bright flame, fire;" bleach; bleak; blemish; blench; blende; blend; blind; blindfold; blitzkrieg; blond; blue (adj.1); blush; conflagration; deflagration; effulgence; effulgent; flagrant; flambe; flambeau; flamboyant; flame; flamingo; flammable; Flavian; Flavius; fulgent; fulminate; inflame; inflammable; phlegm; phlegmatic; phlogiston; phlox; purblind; refulgent; riboflavin.
If you are wondering how bhel could evolve into flame, the answer is that as daughter languages diverged fro proto Indo-European there were sound shifts and one of those was bh to f in the Italic and Germanic languages.
Indo-European sound laws