Post #10 from Kidlit’s Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Blog–

I love Greek and Roman myths. Forget Batman, X-Men, ET, Teletubbies, Ninja Knotheads, forget all of them cause they don’t hold a candle to the Greek and Roman guys. Don’t believe me? Check em out, you’ll see. Anyway, I’m reading The Odyssey for like the gazillionth time (+ 1) and I’m at the story of Ulysses and the cyclops. You know, that giant with one eye in the middle of his head and Ulysses sticks this long burning stick right in the man’s eye, which kind of annoys him just a bit and… anyway, it’s wonderful and painful and gross, all the stuff I find worthy, you know, when it comes to literature. And I had a question.

Why do they call this guy the cyclops? Shouldn’t it be cyclop? I mean, he only has one eye, doesn’t he? And clop is probably ancient Greek for eye. Now I don’t know exactly what cy means. One is the obvious choice, but I’m not sure. Maybe that was like his first name, like Sy nowadays is short for something like Seymour or Simon or Cyrus or Cyril or whatever. Cyclone? Anyway, that dude probably had a regular name like Simon Clop and people shortened it to Cy Clop. That’s the way I see it anyway. (Get it? See?) But there’s no way it would have been clops. After a couple thousand years, people probably copied it down wrong, that’s all.

So all your mythology experts out there, just lissen up to old Crankenfuss and he’ll get you straightened out when it comes to the things that matter.

From your Teller of Truth, Dr. Crankenfuss