Sometime last week, I was having an email conversation with Kathy about clubbing baby seals. I was wondering how "clubbing baby seals" became the default phrase for doing something really cold-blooded. I understood that baby seals are really cute and clubbing them is mean, but I could think of several awful things to do to cute animals (punching kittens, for example). So I emailed Kathy, asking her if she knew why the phrase was so popular. She sent me this Slate Explainer article, which explains why people club seals in the first place and offers some insight into the power of the phrase "clubbing baby seals". Here's a quick excerpt:
"By law, you have to keep clubbing the seal in the forehead until you know for sure that it's dead. Sealers are supposed to 'palpate' a pup's skull after they've clubbed it, to feel the caved-in bone beneath the skin and blubber. Or they can perform the 'blink reflex' test, which consists of touching the seal's eyeball—if it blinks, you've got to club it again."
Umm... Now I can entirely understand why "clubbing baby seals" is the barometer by which all mean things are judged. You learn something new everyday...
(I pulled the pic from www.bergoiata.org)
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