frog! dinosaur!

Ken Jennings reports getting this question from reader Liz:

Recently my friend (a college grad) applied for a summer job with AAA where she would answer phones and help design maps for people who are taking road trips. As part of the application process she basically had to take a mini-SAT with word problems, math problems and analogies on it. One of the analogy questions has really been bugging us and we can’t figure out the answer. I was wondering if you could help us…

Frog : Dinosaur :: Whale :

a) cat
b) human
c) fish
d) bird

historical note

I just came across this correspondence from May 30, 2003.

From: Christopher Monti
To: Jacob Haller
Subject: Re: flower names/band names
Date: Fri, 30 May 2003 10:46:41 -0400

I kind of like 'The Killdevils'


> From: Jacob Haller
> To: Christopher Monti
> Subject: flower names/band names
> Date: Thu, 29 May 2003 21:54:38 -0400
>
> Newcomb's Wildflower Guide doesn't appear to have its own website, but its
> Amazon entry at <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0316604429/realtimerenderin/102-4068365-5152109>
> has some sample pages including the full index, so perhaps I'll give that a look over.
>
> The things I wrote down as possible band names could be on their own or as the fill-in-the-blank part of 'The ____ Blues Band' (the
> latter was what I was thinking of when I selected them). They are:
>
> Ocanee Bell
> Trout Lily
> Wake Robin
> Checkerberry
> King Devil
> Pipewort
> Swamp Candle (or Swamp Candles)
> Tree Frog <- not a flower
>
> See you tomorrow,
> jwgh

This ended what appears to have been around six months of discussion of what our band should be called. (I found a note from the begining January 2003 with some proposed band names. I see that one of the ones I proposed was 'Little Tractor Company', so all in all I think the Killdevils is a pretty good name.) I came up with the idea of looking at plant names when I remembered that Chris used to be in a band called Blue Toad Flax and named his first album 'Swampland Flowers'.

Finding this helps clarify some historical questions about the band. For instance, I wasn't sure if we had settled on a name yet or not when we had the Worst Show Ever (in March 2003 on Saint Patrick's Day -- apparently we were still a couple of months away).