Pachycephalosaurus Troubles

"Pachycephalosaurus wyomingensis dinosaur (Upper Cretaceous; Montana, USA)" by James St. John - Pachycephalosaurus wyomingensis dinosaur (Upper Cretaceous; Montana, USA) 1. Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pachycephalosaurus_wyomingensis_dinosaur_(Upper_Cretaceous;_Montana,_USA).jpg#/media/File:Pachycephalosaurus_wyomingensis_dinosaur_(Upper_Cretaceous;_Montana,_USA).jpg
“Pachycephalosaurus wyomingensis dinosaur (Upper Cretaceous; Montana, USA)” by James St. John

If you have never heard the dinosaur named pachycephalosaurus, you would not be alone. It lived a very long time ago in North America during the late Cretaceous Period and remains have been found in Montana, South Dakota, and Wyoming. Scientists believe it was either herbivorous or omnivorous. The name means “thick headed lizard.” This dinosaur makes an appearance in the latest Jurassic Park movie(which is doing extremely well at the box office).

Guzzy Bear (aka Mobeen) did a YouTube video where he accuses the movie Jurassic World and those behind it as racist. When you shorten pachycephalosaurus to “pachy” it sounds like an offensive slur used in the U.K. against people from Pakistan. Now he was of course being facetious. Alas, just like people who saw a picture of Speilberg sitting next to a dinosaur prop from the original thinking he had bagged a real animal, this has spawned its own circus. Some are outraged at this “Pakisaurus” demanding it be changed and those responsible forced to grovel for forgiveness.

What a bunch of nonsense. Again people are not bothering to check the facts and just jumping at the slightest possible connection to something racist. Take the word picnic, which comes from the French word pique-nique. It means eating food outside. The word has been around for a long time and documented in the authoritative Oxford English Dictionary. Yet some came to believe the word meant people gathering to watch black people being lynched. It was a hoax definition put out via email way back in 1999. Sadly some people actually believed it and sought removal of the word from describing outdoor outings. Gullible people bought this hook, line, and sinker until it was pointed out the word was never ever connected to lynchings.

There are many words out there that are genuine racist slurs that ought never to be spoken or put into print (except for historical research). People who thought picnic, just like those who think pachycephalosaurus shortened to pachy is racist, look like fools. Again it reflects ignorance and illiteracy. Simply type in pachycephalosaurus in a search engine and you will quickly learn this dinosaur roamed North America and its name has nothing whatsoever to do with a British slur against Pakistani people.