Google Doodle Talk

Aww, Nonya, you are spot-on! That has to be a dreidel. I was thinking, what is that stick on the top? A stick to beat a drum? Children's day and dreidel and spinning lattoo (thanks for the video) makes sense. That's a nice connect.

 

The Google Doodle inside story is lovely. It must be truly fun to design something for months even though it is on display for only 24 hours. With Nonya's dreidel insight, I am convinced that much thought goes into designing a doodle.

On that design side, a bit tangential, I was surprised while reading about the design of Indian rupee sign("₹" ) that only 3,331 entries were received from participants. I don't know whether that contest was open for general public or held exclusive.



On 5 March 2009, the Indian government announced a contest to create a sign for the Indian rupee. During the 2010 Union Budget, then Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said that the proposed sign should reflect and capture the Indian ethos and culture. From around 3,331 responses received, five symbols were shortlisted. These were the entries from Nondita Correa-Mehrotra, Hitesh Padmashali, Shibin KK, Shahrukh J. Irani, and D. Udaya Kumar and one of them was due to be selected at the Union Council of Ministers of India meeting held on 24 June 2010. However, the decision was deferred at the request of the Finance Minister, and the final decision was made when that met again on 15 July 2010, when they chose the symbol created by Udaya Kumar, Associate Professor IIT Guwahati.

The new sign is a combination of the Devanagari letter and the Latin capital letter "R" without its vertical bar (similar to the R rotunda). The parallel lines at the top (with white space between them) are said to make an allusion to the tricolor Indian flag and also depict an equality sign that symbolizes the nation's desire to reduce economic disparity.

 

Acorn is not a bad choice either! But to connect children and Dominican Republic and acorn may be challenging.

When drum struck me, I explored drums and came across Spanish Friction Drum. I was convinced that the image represented a fanciful drum with the whole caboodle (percussion stick + drum). May be children in Dominican Republic play with those friction drums

 

Now with your picture book reference, that thingummy could be an acorn playable like a dreidel or a drum. As momsky pointed out that this doodle has been recycled several times, it is not Dominican Republic themed.

Given they are hanging on a tree, acorn is a strong contender.

 

You are late to the party, dude. Here's the background. I wasn't aware that this Doodle was reused in the past for similar Children's Day celebrations across the world. Hence, I presumed that it had something to do with children in DR. I came across DR tambora drum. Nonya just mentioned that it could be a dreidel that children in DR (also) play with.

We were trying to shoehorn our best guess looking at the image into a children's object, may be with an oblique DR association. Hence dreidel and drum, though they are not endemic to DR. Momsky pointed that this Doodle is a generic Doodle for any Children's Day celebrations across the world and suspected that it could be an acorn.

Now that we realize that this Doodle is a generic one, it does not prominently represent any DR culture or tradition.

Milord, still objection! The conformation of the scales does not match the criss-cross pattern in the image. The scales of an acorn are shapely and curved unlike the flat markings in the Doodle. Surely, such scales should have been faithfully reproduced. Children should learn "true" facts

Nice one! I enjoyed reading about it.