Imagine the first people from Europe who saw a rhinoceros, and then tried to describe it to people back home: "It's kind of like a horse, but it has a horn..." I'm thinking that's where the myth of the unicorn came from - these people trying to describe an animal unlike anything on their continent, and the closest thing they could come up with is a horse. (After all, "hippopotamus" means "river horse," and a hippo looks about as much like a horse as a rhino does. I suppose you could try to ride them...?) So the person hearing this story is visualizing a beautiful white steed with a long, spiraling horn coming out of its forehead, not a thing built like a tank that even seems to have armor, and it's got a short horn on its nose. My guess is that the typical unicorn horn depiction actually came from narwhal tusks, but that's another story.
I had a boss who was obsessed with rhinos, and I really respected that. After all, as my regular readers know, I am obsessed with all sorts of random stuff, and plenty of other people are too. Like Jilly Moose, who is obsessed with moose. My boss had all sorts of depictions of rhinos, paintings and sculptures and stuffed animals. Once I was at her house, and she had even more there. Then I made the mistake of asking why she liked rhinos, and she said she had a job that was her dream job but something was annoying her, and a friend said, "You can't raise rhinos without putting up with a few tick birds." I said, "Oh... so it's just a metaphor." She said, "Yes. I have no interest in actual rhinos. They are ugly, smelly animals." Then I lost all respect for her, because it was just a stupid metaphor. Seriously, if you're going to obsess over something, do it for its own sake, not for the sake of a metaphor. Maybe some of my readers won't agree with me, but I was much more interested in her interest in actual rhinos than in her devotion to some dumb metaphor.
Famous Hat
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