You're probably familiar with this scenario. You're racking your brain for an idea. Nothing useful is coming so you switch off the internal censors. Now anything is fair game, no matter how stupid. You're letting the impulses jump willy nilly in the hopes that a wandering mind will bump into something you can draw from.
That's how I just came to look up what Godzilla means. Wonder of wonders...fertile ground.
Sorry, it doesn't mean "fertile ground". It's fertile ground for ideas, because what Godzilla does mean makes almost as little sense as "fertile ground". Here's what I found on Answers.com.
The name godzilla is a transliteration of Gojira (ゴジラ, Gojira?), a combination of two Japanese words: gorira (ゴリラ, lit. "gorilla"?) and kujira (クジラ, lit. "whale"?).
Gorilla Whale. Huh.
I mean yes, a whale is a pretty large creature (or can be) that hails from the sea, and a gorilla can stand upright. Put those together and you have a large bipedal creature that is likely to stumble out of the ocean into a major metropolitan city. But it's just as likely enchant you with its beautiful song and then throw feces at you.
Plus Godzilla is a reptile. Both of the animals in question here are mammals. And Godzilla breathes fire, a talent generally held by dragons, which are also reptiles. And like any reptile worth his scales he has vicious claws on his hands and feet. Whales lost their hands and feet 50 million years ago, give or take whatever amount is necessary to make that figure correct. Godzilla has about as much to do with whales and gorillas as the Easter Bunny does with Margaret Thatcher and Wilt Chamberlain.
Asian culture is funny.
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