Hello and welcome to the Anthropocene Reviewed, a podcast where we review different facets

of the Human-Centered Planet on a 5-star scale.

I'm John Green, and today I'll be reviewing Teddy Bears and Penelope Shootouts.

Let's begin with Teddy Bears, a plush children's toy that's been around since 1902.

The English word bear comes to us from a Germanic root, Barrow, meaning the brown one, or the

brown thing.

Scandinavian languages also don't use a direct name for bear, instead referring to them

as honey eaters.

The main linguists believe that these names are substitutes, created because speaking

or writing the actual word for bear was taboo.

As those in the Wizarding World were taught never to say Voldemort, northern Europeans

did not say their word for bear.

Perhaps because it was feared that saying the bear's true name could summon one.

In any case, this taboo was so successful that today we are left with only the replacement

word for bear.

Essentially, we call them you know who.

Even so, we've long posed a much greater threat to bears than they have to us.

For centuries, Europeans tormented bears in a practice known as bear baiting.

Bears would be chained to a pole and then attacked by dogs until they were injured or

they'd be placed into a ring with a bull for a fight to the death.

England's royals loved this stuff, Henry VIII had a bear pit made at the Palace of

Whitehall.

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