We knew the long quarantine was making us all crabby, but this is extreme: People now feel fully betrayed by the long history of crabification (technically, “carcinization”) of different species over time. That means groups of crustaceans have evolved into crabs in five completely different contexts, giving rise to a meme that the long arc of history truly bends toward the crab.
BoingBoing shares a 2017 paper about carcinization. Carcinization sounds like something about prison at first blush, but on second look, you’ll see it shares a root with carcinogen as well as cancer itself—both from the Greek root karkinos meaning crab. Borradaile coined the new word based on the established scientific usages.
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