Chrysti the Wordsmith > Radio Scripts

Raccoons inhabit all but the coldest and hottest regions of North America. This bandit-faced, ring-tailed creature thrives in both urban and rural environments across the continent. One of the the raccoon's favorite meals consists of small aquatic animals such as crayfish, frogs and crabs which it appears to "wash" in ponds and rivers with its agile forepaws. This behavior inspired its biological designation Procyon lotor, Latin for "doglike one that washes!"

But what about its common name, raccoon? Where did it originate, and what does it mean?

English colonists, new to these shores in the first decades of the 17th century, found a land teeming with strange new creatures. One of these was the raccoon, which early diarists compared to the fox, badger and bear. Since the colonists could find no satisfactory European designation for the animal, they adopted the native Algonquin name.

Twenty-seven year old John Smith, an English soldier, adventurer, and a significant player in the establishment of Jamestown, wrote in 1624, "There is a beast they call arocoughn, much like a badger." Smith spelled the word arocoughn in this document, but he subjected it to more tortured renderings in others writings, with additional g's, h's and u's. By 1672 the spelling had been simplified to raccoon, an Algonquin-derived word meaning "they scrub with their hands."

Radio Script > Raccoon