Meet the Animal Named After an Insult: the Inimitable Sloth
A primer on a mammal that has survived for 40 million years
Has anyone ever called you a sloth?
Maybe your side of the dorm wasn’t as tidy as your college roommate’s because you were too busy mastering D&D. Ergo, your roommate teased you about being a sloth.
Or (hypothetically, of course) your OCD spouse has a thing about taking Christmas lights down before NYE, while you feel Easter is a more suitable target. As a result, in social gatherings, your partner relishes pointing out your “sloth-like” tendencies.
According to the Cambridge English Dictionary, the primary definition of sloth is “unwillingness to work or make any effort.”
Simply put, it means lazy.
Sloth is also one of the Seven Deadly Sins, the others being lust, gluttony, greed, wrath, envy, and pride. It’s a pretty heavy hitter when it comes to insults!
Whether you’ve been the recipient of such name-calling or not, it was probably a temporary designation, unlike the animal, which ended up being forever maligned by ignorant humans.
