The Europeans call moose "elks." I have no idea what they call elks. Europeans are so confused.
It's you Americans that are confused about the whole elk/moose business. :P Alces alces = elk, elch, elg, älg in various European languages. It may be that it was people from the elk-less Great Britain who went to American, saw some wapitis (Cervus canadensis) and said "'Ey, that looks like one of them elks I've heard people from the European mainland talk about!", and so the wapiti were called elks, even though they're not, and the actual elks were referred to by their Algonquian name. The annoying this is that, at least here in Sweden, people usually refer to elks as "moose" when speaking English, probably because that's the word we keep hearing in the many films and tv shows from the US that we watch here.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2013-06-21 10:33 pm (UTC)It's you Americans that are confused about the whole elk/moose business. :P Alces alces = elk, elch, elg, älg in various European languages. It may be that it was people from the elk-less Great Britain who went to American, saw some wapitis (Cervus canadensis) and said "'Ey, that looks like one of them elks I've heard people from the European mainland talk about!", and so the wapiti were called elks, even though they're not, and the actual elks were referred to by their Algonquian name. The annoying this is that, at least here in Sweden, people usually refer to elks as "moose" when speaking English, probably because that's the word we keep hearing in the many films and tv shows from the US that we watch here.