In Season 1 Ep 21 The Magic Mirror, Dr. Smith is looking for Penny and believes she is hiding somewhere around the area where the mirror is located, in frustration he yells out Penalope.
Is this just another example of the character's pompous verbosity?
I can't recall any other instance of Penny being referred to as Penalope. Will has been called William I believe, but I don't recall Judy was ever called Judith or Don Donald.
Well, "Penny" is the diminutive form of "Penelope."
It's possible for someone's "legal" or "given" name to be the diminutive form, but it's probably more common for the legal name of someone known as, say, "Bill" to be "William."
"Jack" is a diminutive form of "John," but "Jack" is sometimes a legal name.
Penelope was the name of Ulysses/Odysseus' ever faithful wife (according to the 3,000 year old "Odyssey" story by Homer). While her husband was gone missing for 20 years, fighting the Trojan War, Penelope claimed she would only re-marry once she had finished weaving a cloth. She wove it each day, and secretly unwove it each night. "Penelope" literally means "to weave and take apart."
On the other hand, some say that "Penny" just means "flower." Given how often Penny Robinson is befriending flowers, maybe we should just go with that.
I always thought of Penny Lane perhaps subconsciously as her and sister Veronica (Twilight Zone and Alien) were from England. I wonder if John ever called his wife Mo? I guess Hey Mo is better than Hey Ho .
shareHmm, how do explain my dad's name was Clarence Arthur, but all his legal documents refer to him as Jack and that's what he was called after he got out of WW2? LOL
I'm a dirty old man and I'm going to be one until I'm a dead old man
In that specific instance, I don't know Jack.
Just curious if anyone remembers any other time that Penny was called Penalope.
I know Penny is a nick name for Penalope, but Penny can also just be a name in and of itself.
It leads me to think Smith was raised/schooled in some snobby upper crust environment.
Excuse me DOCTOR Smith.
In high schol spanish class I happened to mention the wife of Ulysses, but I had only seen the name written, so I pronounced it "Pen-el-lope". And was told it was prounced "Pen-al-o-pee", which was a name I had heard spoken but never seen written.
And how could I know that a name spelled "Penelope" would be pronounced like Calliope instead of antelope?
English spelling and pronunciation are often weird.
Did you ever notice the Robinsons calling for the kids? "Will! Penny!"? I wonder what the cast thought about that when the movie Will Penny was released in 1967.
BTW.... it's PENELOPE.
I'm a dirty old man and I'm going to be one until I'm a dead old man
[deleted]
Your right.
The only Penelope I know of is Penelope Cruz and when I looked her up not only was the fourth letter an "e" and not an "a" but they had an accent mark above the second e as well.
LOL Sorry, I'm an asshat when it comes to spelling.
I'm a dirty old man and I'm going to be one until I'm a dead old man
You forgot Hanna Barbera's Penelope Pittstop
Also in one ep if I remember correctly Don is called Donald West
Perhaps he was told their full names. How did he know Will stood for William and not Wilson or Wilfred or something?
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