What is a Mermaid?

One of our bedtime stories involves a mermaid. This prompted the question “what is a mermaid?”

We thought that the answer is easy: half person, half fish. But then our son told us that he thought that we were wrong. He thought that they were half person and half whale.

The joys of a kid’s logic . Thinking about it, he is probably correct, whales are mammals. Though perhaps dolphins may be a better match size wise.