Posted under General
In Greek, Latin, and English, taurus means bull. Centaurus or centaur is of unknown origin, but is generally believed to have literally meant “bull slayer.” In Greek myth, horse-centaurs are simply called horse-centaurs. The “cen” part doesn’t mean horse at all.
How did “taur” come to mean something with a centauroid body plan in furry fandom, but centaur didn’t?
I have no idea, but taur rolls off the tongue easier than horse-centaur and feels like a natural breakpoint(in the word centaur) for something like another word.
I... what? "taur" in this context is being used as a shorthand for "centaur", that's... pretty much the gist of it. Same as Herm = Hermaphrodite.
Actually, centaur comes from Latin centaurus which is derived from the Greek κένταυρος (kéntauros) (in Greek, there is no letter C; when English mugged Latin for its Greek-derived words, it used C instead of K and then used the wrong C sound for pronunciation). It's uncertain what its exact etymology is, be it "piercing bull" or "bull slayer" and that the Kéntauros are better categorized as hippocentaurs, of which there are two varieties — the traditional centaur that's all horse below the human waist and the version that's basically a human with the back half of a horse stuck to his rear end. There's also icthycentaurs with the hind end of a dolphin or fish instead of the flanks of the horse part, onocentaurs with a donkey body instead of a horse body, and bucentaurs with a cow or bull body instead of the horse.
Now, how many fandom folks know that? Not very many I'd imagine, not now and not back in the day when someone decided they'd like to make a centaur-like character with something other than a horse. ;p Remember, they couldn't use the internet or Google.
So, not really knowing the etymology of centaur beyond what one might get in Merriam-Webster, that someone decided that using "taur" was an acceptable shorthand for a centaur-like character, regardless of the species of its components, much as we now use "anthro" as short for anthropomorphic character even though "anthro" means "human". It's simple, distinctive, and quickly conjures to mind its meaning. This is how language evolves. :p
Updated
This is how language evolves. :p
I can’t find it in any dictionaries, but I did find the word “centauroid.”
popoto said:
I have no idea, but taur rolls off the tongue easier than horse-centaur and feels like a natural breakpoint(in the word centaur) for something like another word.
Yeah, this. And back in day when foxtaur, liontaur, etc were coined, we didn't have things like wikipedia yet. Nobody had any clue exactly what 'centaur' meant.
They certainly sound better than something like 'cenfox'.
