Opossums

Look at that cute animal. It's called an opossum, not a possum. Don't get it twisted.

It intrigues me how Americans have almost uniformly dropped the first letter O from the opossum's name. I'm sure that often it is the result of ignorance rather than the disrespect it comes across as. Last I checked, we don't call snakes "nakes" or tigers "igers." That would be rude, and they'd probably kill us for it. Just because opossums don't pose us a serious physical threat doesn't mean we have the right to belittle them with cutesy nicknames. One of these days, they might get their paws on some weapons and then we'll be wishing we hadn't tried to save a few precious seconds by abbreviating their name.

I have a couple of conspiracy theories at play, the first being the Alphabet Theory. In an attempt to marganilize the opossums and advance their own status, certain members of the animal kingdom might have begun a covert "possum" pronunciation campaign, hence pushing opossums further back alphabetically. Since it's a small drop from "Op-" to "Po-", there's only a short list of species that stand to gain from this scheme. The main suspects are the ostriches, otters, and pigeons -- perhaps there's even a coalition between several of them. If I had to pick a ringleader, it'd be the pandas -- they have an endearing exterior, but are surprisingly aggressive. One animal I feel safe eliminating from suspicion is the orangutan since it'll be dead soon anyway.

My second and more probable conspiracy theory is the Shamrock Theory. It's no secret that there is a lingering Anti-Irish sentiment in this country. It may no longer be the 19th century, but there are still plenty of jobs for which people like the O'Donnells, O'Haras, O'Learys, O'Malleys, and O'Neils "need not apply." Alas, the O'Possums suffer a similar fate. Ashamed of the opossums' Irish heritage, people have conciously stripped the "O'" from their name in an ethnic affront. Refuse to condone linguistic racism: put the O' back in opossum.