As a kid, the whole Easter Bunny thing never made sense to me, because rabbits clearly don’t lay eggs. As I grew older, their roles as symbols of fertility became clearer, which tie strongly into Easter’s pre-Christian roots, so it started to make more sense. But in the spirit of my youthful confusion, here’s a word that references a completely different nonsensical belief regarding what hatches from what.
anatiferous, adj. – Producing ducks or geese.
Learned from: Skullgirls (PS3, Android, iOS, PC, PS4, Switch, XBox 360, XBox One)
Developed by Reverge Labs
Published by Autumn Games, Konami (2012)
Skullgirls has the distinction of being one of the quirkiest fighting games I’ve ever played, from its character designs, to its old-timey theater aesthetic, to the fact that every combo has an associated descriptor. For example, a 7-hit combo is “Lucky,” while an 18-hit combo is “Barely Legal,” and so on. For some reason, a 32-hit combo is “Anatiferous.” It’s inexplicable in the game, and even the history of the word fails to shed any light on the reasons why it’s there.
See, at one point in time, it was believed that barnacle geese hatched from barnacles on the sides of ships. As if that weren’t weird enough, people somehow got the notion that the barnacles themselves grew on trees, and dropped off into the water, before floating over to ships and attaching themselves. Because geese hatching from barnacles hanging from trees would just be silly. I marvel at what kind of worldview must have prevailed at that time, to not only come up with this idea, but to somehow make it stick.
Even the goose is unimpressed by its origin story.
Brain Rot 