Bloody brain

[Scene: the ZOO. A man and a woman, DENZIL and MAVIS, are regarding a cage whose label reads "AARDVARK.")

MAVIS: That's never an aardvark.

DENZIL: That's what it says on the label.

MAVIS: No, that can't really be an aardvark.

DENZIL: (who is a retired history teacher from Edinburgh) Now, dear, you're falling into a well-known logical trap there. I think you'll find that unless you can come up with a reliable definition of what an aardvark actually is, you can't redefine the term to exclude any kind of animal you want to. I for one am perfectly happy to rely on the authority of the label.

MAVIS: Denzil, it's got a trunk.

DENZIL: Obviously it's one of the rare varieties of trunked aardvark. An evolutionary adaptation--

MAVIS: It's twelve feet tall!

DENZIL: Mavis, just because the climate of the zoo happens to agree with it, you cannot arbitrarily exclude this poor beast from the community of aardvarks. I will admit that it makes other aardvarks of which I have seen pictures seem somewhat small and undernourished, but that's entirely within the bounds of--

MAVIS: Are you blind, man? It's an elephant!

DENZIL: (stubbornly) The label says "aardvark." I will continue to call it an aardvark till you can give me a satisfactorily reasoned argument as to why an aardvark can't look like an elephant.

MAVIS: (coldly) Would you accept a DNA sample?

DENZIL: Now you're just being silly. You know perfectly well I would not know a DNA sample if it gave me a haircut. Now, if you've quite finished arguing, we shall move on.

ELEPHANT: (thinks) You're both wrong. I'm a pterodactyl.