{"id":42833,"date":"2015-12-18T06:00:28","date_gmt":"2015-12-18T11:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uncommongoods.pro\/?p=42833"},"modified":"2016-02-15T17:39:26","modified_gmt":"2016-02-15T22:39:26","slug":"uncommon-knowledge-are-mermaids-real","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.pro\/blog\/2015\/uncommon-knowledge-are-mermaids-real\/","title":{"rendered":"Uncommon Knowledge: Are Mermaids Real?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.uncommongoods.pro\/product\/mermaid-lawn-sculpture?source=blog_121815\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-42838 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.pro\/blog\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/Mermaid-Lawn-Sculpture-620.jpg\" alt=\"Mermaid Lawn Sculpture | UncommonGoods\" width=\"620\" height=\"239\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>If you ask Christopher Columbus, yes they sure are.<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s just say that 1493 was a confusing time for Chris. He\u2019d just taken three ships across the Atlantic with the goal of finding a western trade route to Asia and ended up finding the Americas instead. He probably wanted to keep this discovery streak going, and <a title=\"How Manatees Became Mermaids | National Geographic\" href=\"http:\/\/news.nationalgeographic.com\/2014\/11\/141124-manatee-awareness-month-dugongs-animals-science\/\" target=\"_blank\">when he finally saw the mythical half-female, half-fish creatures<\/a> off the coast of the Dominican Republic, he was pretty stoked to tell everyone about it.<\/p>\n<p>He complained that the mermaids were \u201c<a title=\"The Death of Brunhilde, Queen of France - J. Paul Getty Museum\" href=\"http:\/\/www.getty.edu\/art\/collection\/objects\/105199\/unknown-maker-the-death-of-brunhilde-queen-of-france-french-about-1413-1415\/?dz=&amp;artview=dor54028#0.4328,1.233,2.169\" target=\"_blank\">not half<\/a> as <a title=\"Figure alchemica,l XVIIIth century. Manuscript paintings, BNF, Arsenal, MS 973, fol. 12 \u00a9 National Library of France\" href=\"http:\/\/expositions.bnf.fr\/casanova\/grand\/cas_275.htm\" target=\"_blank\">beautiful<\/a> as they are <a title=\"Mermaids: The Lure of Sirens\u2019 Song - Professor Sarah Peverley\" href=\"http:\/\/sarahpeverley.com\/2014\/07\/25\/mermaids-the-lure-of-sirens-song\/\" target=\"_blank\">painted<\/a>,\u201d which was probably as disappointing for him as it was accurate, as he was actually looking at <a title=\"Manatee - Wikipedia\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Manatee\" target=\"_blank\">manatees<\/a>, slow-moving aquatic mammals with human-like eyes, bulbous faces, and paddle-like tails. Cue manatees everywhere <a title=\"The Little Mermaid - Wikipedia\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Little_Mermaid\" target=\"_blank\">wanting to be part of our world<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Mermaid Lawn Sculpture | UncommonGoods\" href=\"http:\/\/www.uncommongoods.pro\/product\/mermaid-lawn-sculpture?source=blog_121815\" target=\"_blank\">Mermaid Lawn Sculpture<\/a> |\u00a0$180.00<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you ask Christopher Columbus, yes they sure are.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":119,"featured_media":42840,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1208],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42833"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/119"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42833"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42833\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44245,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42833\/revisions\/44245"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}