And—despite my devoted, decades-long presence on this public weblog, which could be considered a form of tooting one's own horn, albeit a rather antiquated form in this day and age of rapidly transforming digital platforms—I don't really think I do toot my horn all that much.
I rather enjoy being in the background.
Oh, I like to be appreciated as much as anyone else, but I prefer passive accolades.
Anyway, Andrew said that I would probably do well—at least in the academic world—to toot my own horn a little more, but even if I didn't, I should "remember that you have a horn, even if you don't toot it."
"Like a unicorn," I said. "Has horn. Does not toot it."
"You are not like a unicorn. You," he said, "are a triceratops!"
And I just think that everyone should have someone that supportive in their life. I mean, he's habitually terrible at crafting romantic compliments, but the sentiment is there.
This, of course, launched us into a conversation about triceratopses.
I suggested that triceratops was a weak horned dinosaur to equate me to. If anything I was...whatever that one is with more horns (styracosaurus is what I was going for, though I suppose some of those are spikes, not technically horns, in which case the triceratops might be superior, horn-wise).
Andrew countered that triceratopses don't even exist, anyway.
And they didn't...for a while...kind of.
In 2010, John Scannella and Jack Horner published a paper claiming that "Triceratops and “Torosaurus” actually represent growth stages of a single genus," positing that the triceratops was the juvenile form of the torosaurus.
Not only did this cause a "tizzy" within the internet community, it seems to have caused a bit of a stir among the scientific community. In 2012, for example, Nicholas Longrich and Daniel Field published a paper refuting this theory.
It seems the common consensus (if Reddit counts as common consensus) is that the triceratops is once again considered its own creature. Maybe.
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