Of Shrimps and Prawns

David: "Look whether or not Anton is indeed a midget, or a dwarf..."
Alex: "No he's a midget"
David: "What's the difference?"
Alex: "A dwarf is someone who has disproportionately short arms and legs"
David: "Oh I know the ones"
Alex: "It's caused by a hormone deficiency"
David: "Yeah... bloody hormones"
Alex: "A midget is still a dwarf but their arms and legs are in proportion"
Gareth: "So... what's an elf?"
- The Office, Ricky Gervais and Steven Merchant

Any opportunity to quote comedic genius, Ricky Gervais, must be seized immediately; today, we address the analogous and equally puzzling, brackish, blue line separating prawns from shrimps. Admittedly, I spent many childhood visits to Chinese restaurants pondering said point. Sadly, despite a penchant for cookbook collecting, my mother's concept of cuisine involved adding water to powders, and adding pastas to water. My father did not eat shellfish, and the waiter defied theories of relative linguistics, never really finding the necessary lexicon to offer an English explanation.
As an adult, I have not found the answer much more accessible. The most common response in restaurants was, "Prawns are bigger."
Okay?
A visit to the old Fulton Fish Market (RIP,) was not more helpful as the responses ranged from, "You know that this market is for commercial buyers" to "I don't know, but I got some great Razor Clams."
Being a slow learner, I next turned to the government in search of an answer. Apparently, the FDA has opted not to regulate what is defined as a shrimp or a prawn! (Of course, the largest shrimp consuming city in America is, you guessed it, New Orleans... neglect of the Big Easy? Coincidence or Psychic Phenomena?)
As I am a persistent, yet lazy bastard, I opted to seek an answer on Al Gore's Internet.
Bad Idea! I found some, uh, enlightening, photos of sexual acts with midgets, but as far as actual information is concerned, the confusion only deepened. To paraphrase Groucho Marx, any medium on which I am published is probably suspect. The only solid fact I garnered is that the aussies call shrimps "prawns," and prawns are called "shrimps." However, as I have been unable to differentiate the two, this morsel served only to culminate my confusion.
Likewise, the previously infallible Larousse Gastronomique, shoved shrimps and prawns together in one listing, and did not deliver a distinction.
However, I can phillosophise the following from my fieldwork. Amongst the individual varieties of the creatures, some are classified as shrimp or prawn. For example, Rock Shrimp are always Rock Shrimp, never Rock Prawns; the converse applies to King Prawns.
A bit anti-climactic? My thoughts exactly! Well, kids, you can't win them all!

What of the Times?
To be frank, I actually have little negativity about today's Dining section. True, the work still lacks the "oomph" one would expect from the nation's premier paper, but then again, that can be said of the Old Grey Lady as a whole. Simply put, reading the NYT evokes the banality if not ennui, of a middle aged marriage grown boring with the occasional excitemnet of sex or an arguement, but primarilly an exercise in routine.