Howdy,
 
I thought I would field this question from Mr. Lipinski.  Not because I
have a great knowledge about names or lineage, nor am I well-versed in
etymology.  No, it's mostly because I'm sitting around the house on Sunday
morning in my underwear with nothing better to do.  Also, Mr Lipinski
posted both to the FML and the Northwest Ferret Report, both of which I'm
a member of, so I had the privilege of seeing his post twice.
 
Now the way I understand it (and I'm sure Zen will correct me if I'm wrong)
"Demi Gigas" is in no way an adjective describing a certain type of ferret.
Rather it is the name of a single ferret whose progeny had a unique
appearance and the Demi Gigas name was attributed to that line.  It would
be similiar if I had children who were tall & skinny & goofy-looking, and
their children were tall & skinny & goofy-looking, and so on and so forth.
That line could be attributed the name "Mike Bostrom".  But the name Mike
Bostrom does not become an adjective describing all tall & skinny &
goofy-looking people.
 
Another example, take the name Demi Moore (actress, Striptease, 7th Sign).
Now if we use Mr. Lipinski's dictionary approach, from his post "demi"
means:
 
>one that partly belongs to a specified type or class, as DEMIgod.
 
Then we go to Webster's and flip through the pages until we come to "moore"
we find one definition to be:
 
  a boggy area of wasteland. (ok, ok, I fudged a little here the actual
  spelling is "moor". There was not "moore" in my dictionairy. But for my
  purposes I will just pretend it's one of those funny British words with
  extra letters)
 
Therefore, the name Demi Moore means "some kind of a bog", corelating to
Mr. Lipinski's definition of Demi Gigas being "some kind of a plant".
Obviously, Demi Moore is in no way, shape or form a bog of any kind.
Similiarly, a ferret is most definitely not a plant.  This should make it
apparent that both "Demi Moore" and "Demi Gigas" are not adjectives at all,
but merely names with no descriptive meanings beyond that.  The so-called
demigigous ferret is actually a descenant of a ferret named Demi Gigas.
Perhaps a more correct term would be Demi Gigasson similiar to the human
name Peterson meaning son of Peter.
 
Well there you have it.  That's my take on the subject.  And for those of
you who understood it the first time Zen explained it, I apologize for
taking up your time.  This all may be off-base anyway.  Like I said, I'm
not an expert at names and stuff (although I do know the name Michael
means "god-like").
 
May your ferrets be always properly adjectively described,
Limejello & The Weezils of Doom
http://home1.gte.net/wrenched
 
PS:  My apologies to Ms. Moore, if for some strange reason she is reading
this list. She was the only person I know of that had the name "Demi".
[Posted in FML issue 2652]