Possibly the most complex language in the animal kingdom
That… seems wrong.
To be fair I think they meant “most accoustically complex language” which is different from like human languages (which have a degree of nonverbal complexity and ideation clearly beyond whales)
Tonal Languages have entered the chat
Good luck producing super sonic frequencies. These whales seem to have sonar as factory default equipment.
While the bowl of petunias thought “Oh no, not again” and if we understood why that was, we’d know a lot more about the universe than we do now.
A random joke that was paid off years and years later
I will never not upvote Hitchhiker’s Guide quotes
I listen to the radio version of hitchhiker’s while I go to sleep often, if I managed to hit play in the middle of the whale’s pondering I always back up a bit. It’s one of my favourites of the entire series and not as good when played mid pondering.
Also the line about the bowl of petunias having relevance later is quite amusing to be sure. Though I assume not thought of when written.
IIRC the radio scripts were the very first version. Which means that the joke in the radio show was probably deliberate.
I know for a fact that in the books there’s a throwaway gag that the petunias thought, “Oh no, not again,” and the narrator mentions something about the fact that if anyone knew what that meant, the universe might make a whole lot more sense.
That’s pretty much the radio version as well the books were pretty close on those lines.
It’s the loudest animal on the planet
Apart from Brian Blessed, of course.
Be careful, I’ve become positively obsessed with them. Well, one in particular…
At least you save money on shoes
That’s why I’m always wary to swim in the ocean. I have a strict no schlorp policy.
Ohh, so you are afraid to be “schlorped”? By the “sperm” whale?
Oh yeah, no big schlorp for me, thanks.
As they are highly flammable it is good that they spend quite a bit of time in water.
Far away from the big ball of fire in the sky
Now this is an HFY prompt.
Is it tho
Or is it a “humans are fucking cringe” prompt
I was envisioning a story where sperm whales became the dominant species of the galaxy with sonic beams. Maybe more Deathworlders Fuck Yeah?
