*The Institute is known for many things. We are a world-wide phenomenon that not only carries out complex, some say irresponsible experiments, but we also look at current and age-old conventions that litter the scientific community like political lawn signs the day after the election. These are mostly losers signs as the winners pick theirs up right away as souvenirs but the losers, already out of cash from shooting their wad trying to win, leave theirs up until someone files a public nuisance charge against them. But that’s neither here nor there right now. We just mention it because nobody likes a loser.

One of the oldest procedures the scientific community has is the naming of stuff. It doesn’t matter if that stuff is already named, they name it again with special scientific nomenclature that nobody but them and a few nerds who took Latin in high school understand. This is why they can get the big bucks when someone asks “What the hell is That?”, with “That” being anything the asker doesn’t know about.

This is how they keep their knowledge from the general run of the mill people who never went to college, or if they did, didn’t study, and how they maintain an almost impenetrable clique of smart guys. So to make it even harder for normal people to join their ranks they developed a way to name things that only they understood, so when they used this new naming language the regular guys just kind of stared at them blankly and had to ask ” uh, what does that mean?’ thereby giving the scientific guys all the power and the ability to laugh at the poor unwashed who appeared to be really dumb. Which of course they wielded unmercifully.

Soon with all these Latin names attached to everything, you didn’t know if you had picked up a spoon or a platypus because you no longer had a name that you recognized. You had to give the scientific community something, like money or chickens, to be able to get the right word for spoon so you could eat whatever gruel you had for supper that night. This has gone on for years.

Take this wolf in the picture above for instance. We had to fight tooth and nail to get the word Wolf back in general usage, ripping it away from the scientific community who wanted you to call it Canis lupus and berated, ostracized and ridiculed anyone who said ‘wolf’ without going through them first. Uncaring of the hardship this placed on the little people who had to say things like “Looks like the Canis lupus ate little Everett last night. Oh woe are us” or the shepherd who upon seeing wolves attacking his sheep had to run to the village screaming “Canis lupus, Canis lupus they are eating the sheep!” Actually it was worse that that as the sheep had been renamed Ovis aries and by the time they had found one of the smart guys and got all that sorted there weren’t any sheep left. Nothing but a few hooves and that small bell one of them wore around his neck. Even that had tooth marks on it.

Well, what the scientific community didn’t know, but is quickly finding out, is that we have some of those smart guys here at The Institute too. We got ’em because they got their nose out of joint at some important scientific meeting where everybody else laughed at their presentation and told them they were dorks and imbeciles for even bringing up such drivel. So we got them. Cheap too. They couldn’t wait to get back at all of those really smart guys who thought they were so much smarter because their presentations actually made sense and weren’t nuts.

We immediately put them to work deciphering all of the arcane hard to understand names that are in use just to keep normal people stupid and ashamed of their ignorance. A lot of these guys we hired pretty much knew Latin, at least enough that we could get a lot of the simple names translated. Ones like, cat which in Latin is  Felis silvestris catus, or Orangutan which is also in Latin and is Borneo or Sumatran Orangutan. To give you just a small example of how the public has been duped, and put at risk, the Orangutan has been classified, in Latin of course, the language of those smarter than you, Ponginae, Gigantopithecus including the largest known primate Gigantopithecus blacki. See what we mean? How are you going to get all that out if you’re calling Animal Control because you have one in your backyard. They’re just going to hang up on you and you’ll be left to fend for yourself, Orangutan-wise.

The Institute has decided enough is enough. We are going to give the power back to the people as far as naming stuff goes. If you know something by some name like maybe Lawnmower, which is Mower Ridingicus Searsii in Latin, you just call it lawnmower, forget all that Latin crap, or calling  Names R Us for the proper Latin name and getting charged big on your Visa. Think of the freedom you’ll have from the tyranny of the Scientific World. Think of the money you’ll save from just hollering out “Hey Orang! Get outa my yard!” That’s the kind of work we do here at The Institute. Bringing back Power To The People. And as always, this is free to you our readers, so Remember, We’re The Institute and we’re here to help.

PS If you have have been stuck using some difficult Latin name for something and you want the real actual name people use, send it to us via email and we’ll put some of our smarter guys on it. They’re just kind of sitting around doing nothing since they’ve got a lot of  the simple names translated. We have to feed and take care of these guys so they should be doing some thing useful.

* Note: For those of you unfamiliar with The Institute and what it does, please see the page labeled The Institute on the Menu Bar above. That should explain everything. You shouldn’t have one single question remaining regarding The Institute after reading it. None. For those of you favored few who already know about the Institute, Nevermind.