Why would we call our hearing aid “The Bandicoot” (which is really a shortened version of “rabbit-eared bandicoot”)?
Why would we choose the name of this peculiar creature
(however beautiful) to represent a hearing aid? There are several reasons why we might not:
- Dictionary.com defines an “old coot” as “a foolish person, especially an old man”
- Bandicoot is a sewer-declogging robot in India
But here’s the true story of how this name came about….
When my kids were small, we enjoyed reading a book called Strange Animals of Australia (by Toni Eugene), and published by the National Geographic Society):
My elder son and I would get into (pretend) insult matches which involved accusing the other of being a strange animal of Australia:
But every argument ended with someone calling the other a rotten rabbit-eared bandicoot.
This eccentric marsupial, a seeming Frankenstein of two creatures, is also known as the “greater bilby” — but that just doesn’t have the same pizzazz, right?
When it came time to think of an animal which best represents our project, the rabbit-eared bandicoot assumed the title because
- it’s got ears in its name,
- it has enormous ears (the better to hear you with), and
- it’s so cute!
- Its name implies that it has “borrowed” its hearing device from another source, just as our hearing device is in some sense a “borrowing” of ears.
So Rabbit-Eared Bandicoot it is!