"That's easy", you say, "Mustela (putorius) furo!".
 
But in Sweden it's not so easy. In fact, my suggestion that we
call them "frett" (like in Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands)
made it an inflamed question, as some say it's only correct to
call albinos that. Others are to be termed "tam-iller" (domestic
polecat). (The board of one of our national organisations may
resign as a result of this controversy, the competing
organisation has ridiculed us a lot for even discussing the
question.)
 
The argument that "ferret" means "weasel" in the USA has been
used against the use of "frett", also that "frett" means "ermine"
in some parts of Sweden. I think I can handle that, but now
someone has called in a scientific authority who claims that it's
a serious mistake to use American literature in this context, as
the ferrets of North America aren't the same animals as the
Swedish ones. (Which is partly beside the question, as we've
mostly concentrated on what they're called in other Northern
European countries.)
 
What I want to know now is: Is there any reason not to believe
they are the same? I imagine ferrets were brought across the
Atlantic so relatively recently they can't have diverged very
much.
--
 Urban Fredriksson  [log in to unmask]
 
[Posted in FML issue 0864]