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What is a whale's penis called?

Question #119773. Asked by star_gazer.
Last updated Oct 17 2016.

hansdelbruk
Answer has 8 votes
hansdelbruk
15 year member
97 replies

Answer has 8 votes.
Dork. No reference, but I've sailed from South America to the Bering Straits and that's perty much the name I've heard it referred to throughout those regions.

Jan 04 2011, 7:30 AM
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Terry star
Answer has 16 votes
Currently Best Answer
Terry star
Moderator
24 year member
333 replies avatar

Answer has 16 votes.

Currently voted the best answer.
Conclusion: the term for a whale's penis is: penis

This is an interesting one, but there is no reliable source that claims that "dork" ever was anything than a meme / hoax / internet-era invention. My conclusion is that there is no special term for whale penis, and particularly not "dork". "dork" appears to be slang for generic penises of all types.

In particular, there do not appear to be any marine biologists anywhere who vouch for this term.
For good measure, I queried several whale experts - Professor C. Scott Baker of the OSU Dept. of Fisheries and Wildlife, John Calambokidis, senior research biologist and co-founder of Cascadia Research, Phillip Clapham of the National Marine Mammal Laboratory and author Richard Ellis (The Book of Whales, Men and Whales, Encyclopedia of the Sea, etc.) - all of whom told me they had never seen nor heard the word dork used in reference to a whale's reproductive anatomy - ever.

Lastly, in answer to those who have tried to rebut these findings by arguing that if enough people use the word dork to mean "whale penis" then it's a valid definition, here's what's wrong with that argument. The phenomenon we're discussing isn't people using the word that way — nobody really does! — the phenomenon is people claiming that dork means "whale penis" on the basis of no empirical evidence whatsoever.

link http://urbanlegends.about.com/b/2009/05/05/dork-definition.htm
Actually,, I believe the "whale" definition is simply a common, incorrect definition. About a year ago I had a bet with a friend regarding the "whale" definition. After, believe it or not, a conversation with a marine biologist at Scripps, we determined that "dork" never referred to any scientific description of a whale member. It does refer to penis generally though. How it got mis-applied to whales specifically is an oddity.

link https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/Talk:dork

Response last updated by Terry on Oct 17 2016.
Oct 17 2016, 8:26 PM
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