Teenage Mutant Ninja Tortoises?!

Do you know the difference between the words? Turtle and tortoise, that is. And, yes, in answer to your question, this is of critical, life-altering importance.

Well, here's the answer in 3D HD 1080p! Not, really, but those tech specs are impressive sounding, right? Anyway, here is a turtle:

A good friend. He's a turtle.

And a tortoise:

His name's Guillermo Silvioti.

Spot the difference? Hint: It has nothing to do with cafes or double shot espressos.

Both of the guys above are happy residents of the order Testudinidae, "characterized by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs that acts as a shield," (thank you Wikipedia). This means they both are also our ectothermic reptilian friends. That word means cold-blooded, by the way. Challenge: use it in a daily conversation today!

What isn't a common running characteristic is the particular classification of their environment as aquatic or terrestrial. Or in less obfuscated, know-it-all language, turtles live almost exclusively in the sea, whereas tortoises claim the land and sometimes lakes, streams et cetera.

Now, if you want to get really picky and taxonomically anal, then the term "turtle" refers to anything of the Testudines order. So tortoises are indeed turtles, but if your turtle has flippers then he (or she) is not a tortoise, but a sea turtle.

However, no one actually speaks this way unless they sport pocket protectors 24/7, so we'll stick to the first, (only slightly) less anal definition.

With that in mind, doesn't it make a lot more since to call them "Teenage Mutant Ninja Tortoises"? I don't remember Michaelangelo or Raphael flippering the bad guys to death, but it was a long time ago. However, "tortoises" is just one of the words that really doesn't go well in a song. Seriously. You might as well use the word "testudines." New Scrabble word, everyone! The next time someone plays S-T-U-D, you'll know how to get your triple word score from it.

Anyway, despite your severe doubts as to the relevance this has with Japan, it does. In Japanese, there's one word for turtles, tortoises and testudines--亀 (kame). So, when explaining to a Japanese person that tortoise is 陸亀 (riku-game or terrestrial kame) and that turtle is 海亀 (umi-game or sea kame), and when they ask, "so is it really Teenage Mutant Ninja Tortoises, then?" it does give one pause to consider the deep philosophic ramifications of such a lexical choice. Especially, when beer's involved.