The Dolphin Brothers

In the late '80s I was busy building a family, watching Thirty Something, and figuring out what I wanted to be when I grew up.  I totally missed the musical phenomenon known as The Dolphin Brothers who are described as having the sound of a "Fashion-era David Bowie" featuring the "classic simplicity of a nice piece of plodding liquorice and some good old plain sherbet."  [I wish I could write like that.]

But enough about me, this is a blog about word roots and relationships.  One of the first words that I learned was decodable was Philadelphia - the city of what?  That's right "brotherly love" (phila = love + brother = delphia).  Isn't it odd that a city famous for booing Santa Claus is called Brotherly Love.  I wonder if they like dolphins there?  They could rename the town to Philadolphia.

That actually wouldn't be much of a change.  The Greek word for brother, delphos, is interesting.  The IE Root, gwelbh, actually means womb.  Somewhere along its travels the g morphed to a d and picked up the delph sound.  Since brothers are from the same mother, they can be said to be womb-mates.  Get it?  Womb-mates, like roommates... oh never mind.

Okay, brothers are from the same womb.  But what about those cute dolphins?  Believe it or not, someone decided that a dolphin was shaped like a womb - an area of expertise that exceeds my knowledge base.

So here's to you, The Dolphin Brothers.  You named yourself after basically the same thing - a womb.   That's why I miss the '80s.