Let's start with the well-known: the myth of the centaurs is caused by the unprecedented spectacle of a rider on a horse, who was perceived as a whole. Hence it came out "ken" - a prince, a man + "taurus" - a bull (taurus) = "Man-Byk", because the horse was unknown, and therefore was compared with the famous bull.
In addition to previous experience, the perception of an object depends on the lighting conditions, the point of view and duration of observation, the emotional state of the eyewitness, etc.
When already accustomed to horse riders, the word "centaur" did not disappear, but continued to exist on its own - the constellation Centaurus, which is better known as the constellation Centaurus (the famous star Alpha Centauri or Proxima Centauri is the closest star to our solar system).
Now the word "centaur" in certain circles can mean this:
Promotional video:
Not at all because the crew and the vehicle visually form a single whole, the Italians just called this heavy armored car "Centaur".
In general, perception depends on the richness of associative links. That is, complex things, even if they are familiar, are very difficult to explain to an unprepared person whose knowledge, and accordingly vocabulary, is limited by the directly observed surrounding world.
The military with their technology and other equipment can be perceived in a very surprising way by inexperienced viewers from the outside. As a rider on horseback was taken for a single whole "centaur" - a man-bull, in the same way an artillery gun was perceived at the same time with a gun crew - like an Italian "Centaur".
So that it doesn't seem so simple, let's imagine that you need to explain to a person who is very far from technology what a tank is. Do you represent him well? From pictures and movies? Have you seen it alive?
Most imagine a tank roughly in the layout of the legendary Soviet tank of the Second World War T-34:
But our hypothetical native, to whom you must explain as much as possible so that he can clearly tell his tribe, could see different tanks at different times from different angles:
We look in the dictionary: a tank is a fully armored combat tracked vehicle (sometimes they also add that it is a self-propelled vehicle that moves with the help of tracks on rollers, a tower with a cannon is installed on top). So, we must try to use exactly those available words, images and comparisons in order to understand something like a game of association …
Tank - eng. tank - tank, tank, tank, capacity, these are the first tanks in the First World War were so classified by the British, since then it has gone (compare: an honest "tanker" - cisterns, tanks, or this railway tank in English "tank wagon" - tank wagon):
A tank is a tank, a tank:
Hmm, but in Japanese, tanks are poems …
the whole tank in armor:
And on top of it is a tower:
(and where can a native show his tower?)
A cannon is installed in the tower. English. push - to push, but the cannon is actually a cannon. In the Bulgarian "pushen" - smoking, "gun" - a rifle. Yeah, a cannon, it's a pipe like a big bamboo (or a tree with a hole?). The cannon shoots, but not with arrows, but with shells. What is equipped? Yes, something is nonsense.
Let's try to go from the other side, for example, we explain to the inhabitants of the steppes, for whom the concepts of big-small are compared with something known as “small as a mouse” and “big as a camel”.
The tank looks like a very large turtle, larger than a camel:
The turtle moves on two tracks.
And warriors are placed inside the big turtle:
Instead of a head, a large turtle has a long snake:
From which the turtle shoots:
But not with arrows, but with fire:
With a terrible thunder like lightning:
Something like this.
If the general idea is clear, then we turn to the fabulous descriptions of such weapons:
